Template talk:Infobox medical condition (old)/Archive 2

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Suggestion

Vasomotor rhinitis
ICD-10 J30.0
ICD-9 477.9
International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD) code information

Here's my suggestion for how to clarify what on earth this box is for. (not-The) Rod --60.228.33.249 15:33, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

  • See also earlier comments under #Header.

The offered footer is fine if ICD9 or 10 is required (which I prefer), but something more general is appropriate for the other databases. Finavon 17:45, 1 October 2006 (UTC)


Classifications and Further Information
Random horrible disease
ICD-10† J30.0
ICD-9† 477.9
OMIM‡ 161800 256030 605355
DiseasesDB 31991 33448 33447
MedlinePlus 001648
eMedicine ent/402
MeSH§ D012223
† International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems code
‡ Mendelian Inheritance in Man database code
§ Medical Subject Headings descriptor

Take 2

Yea, you're right, I didn't really notice/understand that this box is way more generic. Here's another go at making it more interesting using footnotes, could also use numbers (the <ref/> way) but it might be good to keep it distinct from the standard references. Some nice characters that can be used to indicate footnotes are: "†", "‡", "§", "*", "††", "‡‡", "§§", "**", "†††", "‡‡‡", "§§§", "***". Would make the template logic flow a tiny bit more complicated, but such is the price of sensificationality. (Rod) --60.228.33.249 23:37, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Considering that a wikilink exists for each line of the template, I'm not sure how much benefit there would be to including footnotes. On the other hand, the ICD-10 line currently links to List of ICD-10 codes and ICD-9 links to List of ICD-9 codes, and neither of those pages provide much explanation. True, there is a link to ICD right at the top of each of those pages, but I wouldn't object if somebody wanted to point these links directly to ICD. --Arcadian 00:46, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
My issue is that the uninitiated have no idea if this box can give them more information about the topic they are looking at. That was how I've ended up here, it's currently just an odd box with some strange codes with links to lists of stuff that I have to go clicking through multiple levels to figure out if I've wasted my time doing the clicking in the first place. You should be able to know if the infobox can offer you actual helpful further information just by looking at it, not by having to click through it. Therefore, the footnotes would provide some of that information and give you hints about what you're going to find if you go on the click trail. Of course, the header also helps out towards this, I think this is needed at a minimum. (Rod) --60.228.33.249 01:24, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

This box seems to be less intuitive than many, despite going through a number of incarnations. It seems a good way to concisely provide access to further information in a standard format while still being useful to those in the know. I support the addition to the header and would like some form footer. Finavon 07:14, 2 October 2006 (UTC)


Horrible condition
Classifications and external resources
ICD-10 J30.0
I quite like the idea of putting some sort of explanation in the templates header explaining what is for. However, I think the name of the condition needs come first and most prominantly, with the templates purpose then shown as a subheading. I also propose a slight tweak of the description given (1) to indicate that these are for external links and (2) now fit on single line. Anyone object to:David Ruben Talk 03:17, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Looks good to me. --Arcadian 10:15, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
As for ICD-9 & ICD-10, why not link both ways, ie the ICD to ICD and the 9 or 10 to the relevant list. Hence ICD-10 and ICD-9 ? David Ruben Talk 17:30, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Sounds good - done. --Arcadian 17:50, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
I've had a go at the conditional coding needed to provide explanatory footnotes. The coding is at Template:Add code (for now) and the effect is shown at Template talk:Add code (which is where one should experiment with various parameters being undefined. (An alternative would have been to give the explanatory description immediately below each item, but that looked very cluttered). David Ruben Talk 23:48, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
I like it all, lets get the header and footers done then eh? (ie: vote +1 from me) --203.51.90.231 05:55, 10 October 2006 (UTC) (Rod)

Multiple MedlinePlus

Is it possible to insert more than one MedlinePlus links in the infobox? As implied in the talk page, I tried "MedlinePlus_mult = {{MedlinePlus2}} |" but there is no Template and I do not know enough to create one. Finavon 18:02, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

You are correct - it did not exist. This should now be fixed. --Arcadian 00:41, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Beyond eMedicine_mult

eMedicine_mult is fine if just a few additional eMedicine links need be added, but search eMedicine for Neuropathy comes up with 40 articles. Clearly we are not going to add links to all 40, but it would be nice to at least provide some sort of link to show eMedicine's resources on the topic. I have therefore allowed the eMedicine parameters to show instead a direct link to eMedicine's search pages for a topic:

Set eMedicineSubj = search and eMedicineTopic to the term to be searched for.

As far as I can tell, my coding has not upset the normal use of this template in other articles. I'm sure we could do similar for MedlinePlus but I'm not sure on wisdom of doing so - its search pages provide links away from its "article" series and to other sites. David Ruben Talk 02:55, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Small problem encountered - using search string with spaces. eMedicine needs to be passed a search string with % 2 0 replacing any space (else the space is taken as the start of alternative display text - e.g. [http://www.example.com Displayed]). However then showing this search string (with asci code for space) looks messy. Hence I have altered instructions to editors to insert the '% 2 0' and the template shows instead "topic list". As an example see this version of Shaken baby syndrome (an anon editor repeatedly removing any attempt to apply cite.php footnotes in favour of inline hyperlinks unconnected to manually maintained reference list). David Ruben Talk 21:32, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Width of Infobox

Hey there, would it be possible to make the width of this box the same as the width of the Taxoboxes? Human papillomavirus is an example of what these two boxes look like when stacked, and I think it would be much more attractive if the widths matched. Thank you! jengod 23:47, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

OK switched from width of 20em to 200px (does not seem much of a change on my computer). Can be reverted back if anyone disagrees. David Ruben Talk 03:15, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

The Width of the caption

{{editprotected}} There is a problem with the rendering of the box on the latest version of Safari, the title section is a different width to the rest of the box making it look very very untidy. Easily sorted though... just replace the top with something more standard like this:

{| class="infobox" cellspacing="0" style="width: 200px; font-size: 95%; text-align: left;"" |- | colspan="2" align="center" style="font-size:1.3em; style="background: {{{Background|lightgrey}}}" | '''{{{Name|{{PAGENAME}}}}}'''<br>''Classifications and external resources'' |-

--Bob 05:53, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Opera9 has a problem with it too - the caption part is narrower than the rest of the table. Why don't you replace the caption with a normal table row? -- Boris 21:35, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I have no objections to that. Try it and see if it helps. --Arcadian 23:54, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
I played a bit but as far as my "style" knowledge gets me i couldn't make it look good at two browsers (Opera and FF) at the same time - if it looked good on one it would be awefull on the other. Normally i go around by using JavaScript (some people preffer PHP, or some other way) which would detect the browser and change the the style accordingly but we can't do it here. I don't really see why you guys would want to use the <caption> element for the header. If it because there is no white area around the heading then the caption alone could be inside a normal table with no padding, sitting on a second table that hold all the info and both these are nested inside a third one which positions them on the screen, but that's too unnecessary. So a very good and simple solution is what Bob has proposed and i agree with him [1]. I also addded another row of two cells that is just under the header, that row keeps the rest of the content as away from the header as away are the table borders surrounding the header, plus it gives an easy way to control the width of the cells that hold the content. For the table's padding (5px) and width (280px) i used the same style definitions we have for the drugbox. -- Boris 10:38, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Looks good, when will it be implemented? --Bob 08:05, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Not done now, please provide the exact text you wish to substitute in (and the text that needs to be replaced), then readd the editprotected tag. Proto::► 18:31, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Merck Manual

The Merck Manual should be included in this template. [2] Thoughts? I don't understand how it can not be included (yet). --Chussid 23:37, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

In keeping with WP:NOT#REPOSITORY, I'd be reluctant to add yet more links to this prominent info box. Many info boxes actually provide information, not just a collection of terse external links. A brief review of the above resource revealed mixed results. Some topics were considerably less comprehensive than the Wikipedia article and hence don't meet WP:EL policy. Other topics were well covered but the lack of a named author for the topic, or any references, reduces its usefulness. Colin°Talk 17:56, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

The last time I checked, the Merck Manual was outrageously inaccurate with respect to Tourette syndrome - we've got enough inaccurate info in the info box already - please, let's not add more. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:35, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Disease is inapropriate for many symptom-based neuropsychiatric conditions

Either the category must be renamed or autism, Aspergers, ADHD, Tourette, Bipolar and probably several other conditions should *not* link to it. These are generally not viewed as diseases. --Rdos 05:40, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

This is not a category, but an Infobox template. The template does not add any category to the articles it is used in, nor does it anywhere describe the condition/disorder/disease/ill by any particular title (only the article's own name is used if not directly specified). The choice of terms disease/illness/conditions is largely interchangeable and somewhat arbitary, although some terms are associated with stereotypes that some might wish to avoid. I both do not see a need to change name of the template, and certainly nothing in how it displays that needs changing. David Ruben Talk 10:00, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
The template was created as "Template:DiseaseDisorder infobox", and it was renamed to "Template:Infobox Disease" by User:Netoholic on 8 January 2006. I could support something like a rename to "Template:Infobox Medical condition". --Arcadian 13:07, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
If consensus becomes to rename, would we need a bot to rename in the thousands of articles currently used in (to overcome redirect load and apply some uniformity across articles), if so how would thi sbe arranged ? David Ruben Talk 13:20, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I can't see much need to change since the name of this template is invisible to readers. Is the inappropriateness of "disease" due to not be specific (syndromes and injuries also use this template) or because the term may cause offence if applied to certain people-groups who don't regard their condition as being a medical problem. If the latter, then the box fails on more than just the name, since it links to medical resources.
BTW: There are approx 2,100 links to this template and 1,200 links to the old "Template:DiseaseDisorder infobox", which is now a redirect. Colin°Talk 17:47, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
It's invisible to readers - no need to go through the extensive work of re-naming it, even if Tourette syndrome is not a "disease". SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:09, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Problem with OMIM_mult

I'm getting a bogus blank entry at the begining of the OMIM_multi, at Albinism. Any ideas why? — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 05:40, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. (The "OMIM_multi" is only when you have more than one; the "OMIM" field is used for the first one.) --Arcadian 08:24, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Oh! Might want to make that clearer in the documentation. Thanks for the quick fix.  :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 09:48, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
I've added more explict details of the "template2"'s to use with teh "_mult" parameters. Hope this helps :-) David Ruben Talk 03:28, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

US-centric ICD-9(CM)?

The ICD-9 line of the template automatically refers the reader to the ICD-9CM version currently used in the US. As a result of this, articles such as Chronic fatigue syndrome point to 9-CM listings while advertising (to the non-US eye) that the condition is listed as such (in this case 780.71) in the original ICD-9. However, CFS (the name) had not been invented when ICD-9 was adopted in 1975 and the original ICD-9 did not have 5-digit codes (CFS would fall under the original code 780.7). Therefore I'm proposing to add template code accommodating such instances (identical to the ICD9 but with ICD9CM as argument and ICD-9CM as displayed text). Another way might be to make it clear to the reader that the US version ICD-9CM is used. Thanks. AvB ÷ talk 09:31, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Template:OMIM4

Using this new template in |OMIM_mult (but not in |OMIM) would reduce a lot of clutter. See an imperfect (due to no comma after |OMIM) demo at Albinism. This new {{OMIM4}} variant of {{OMIM2}} gets rid of the ext. link icon. After the first one, in |OMIM, we already know these are ext. links. Changes needed:

  • Template documentation update to say to use {{OMIM4}} instead of {{OMIM2}} and to use ", " not " " between them (there are I believe three places this would need to change, one in the prose and two in examples).
  • Template change, to use ", " after |OMIM instead of " ", when |OMIM_mult is also present (needs a "{{#if:...}"). Alternatively, just get rid of the distinction: Have just |OMIM but have it work like |OMIM_mult. This would have the benefit of making the template's usage less confusing, and its code much simpler and shorter.
  • Note: |OMIM would continue to call {{OMIM2}}. In alt. version proposed above, first occurrence would use this, subsequent ones would call {{OMIM4}}.
  • Similar plainlinks variants would need to be made for the non-OMIM templates this infobox uses similarly with _mult's, and similar changes made to the docs and template code, for consistency, though this change isn't dreadfully urgent.
  • Full implementation would also probably require bot or AWB edits to many installed infoboxes.

See Template talk:OMIM3 for some background, and another template making use of this idea (with {{OMIM5}}, the plainlinks variant of {{OMIM3}}).

— SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 04:06, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

DISEASE database reliability

Disease database is extremelly reliable yes? Because i am did quite a siginificant amount of changes and redirects according to the information it had given me (along with some of it's ICD9'S/10'S) in my last contributes articles. The disease article i created actually redirected (since 2004) to this other disease article that came from a different parasite, while the one that was redirected comes from another parasite (please tell me im making sense lol), so in essence there are 2 disease, from 2 different parasites..... according to disease database... and addition to this they just happened to be AKA'ed as 4398394 other names, so i had to make all these redirects, and hopefully they are correct. Please check my contributions and assure that I made the right creation/contributions/redirects. Wooh im feeling the wiki heat LoL. Thanks in advance. Ps as a side note... whats up with all the other random disease infobox templates.... shouldn't there be only one uniformed one?.. petze 16:43, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

For the condition I'm most familiar with, the disease database is not only not reliable; it's wrong. It doesn't even contain the correct diagnosis. [3] I would not rely on its information being accurate. And, it carries an HONcode logo, which means nothing, by the way. I suggest you doublecheck your contributions, and use better sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:49, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Rename

I propose renaming this template to Template:Infobox Disorder. Some object to the term disease to describe their condition. Example: Talk:Albinism#Disease infobox. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 19:23, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

See the discussion 5 sections up. Editors can continue to use "Template:DiseaseDisorder infobox" if they wish (imagine a slash between the two words). The name of the template is invisible to readers. Even "Disorder" is disliked by some since it still implies there is something wrong. Colin°Talk 20:57, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Mesh Code and Mesh Name

Can someone describe how to use the MeshName field. Reviewing the code it seems to need a MeshNumber, that, as far as I can tell, does not exist, so that using the MeshName field produces mumbo-jumbo in the infobox. TIA --CrownofThorns 04:08, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

The default is now to use MeshID. MeshNumber and MeshName are not needed, though support for the fields still exists for legacy purposes. The MeshID can be obtained either from the DieasesDB site, or from the MeSH site (look for the field marked "Unique ID", near the bottom.) --Arcadian 04:27, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

iw tr is wrong

iw tr is wrong and it should be replaced with this: tr:şablon:Hastalık Thanks for help.--Plenumchamber 10:47, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok I have changed it. --Plenumchamber 11:02, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Clinical information on infobox

(transfer from Template talk:Infobox Disease/doc to here where others might see David Ruben Talk 20:32, 9 November 2007 (UTC))

I think there should be basic clinical information on the disease infobox, such as symptoms, causes, and treatments. This would help someone who is visiting the page just to obtain that info to get it instantly. Tatterfly 19:33, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Above user suggested the following parameters:
 | Organs affected= 
 | Age group = 
 | Symptoms = 
 | Causes = 
 | Risk factors = 
 | Diagnostic Measures= 
 | Treatment = 
 | Fatal = 
 | Curable =
  • Weak oppose - My feeling is that may prove almost impossible to give suitably brief entries, without reducto ad absurdum (ie so brief as to be meaningless). Also would need rethink of parameter names ("Diagnostic Measures" is far too long if enough space in right-hand column is going to give details) David Ruben Talk 20:42, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Top box

The top of this box does not render correctly in all browsers (Safari 3.0.4 and Firefox Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.8.1.9) Gecko/20071025 Firefox/2.0.0.9).

Instead of:

{| class="infobox" style="width: 200px; font-size: 95%; text-align: left;"
|+ style="background: {{{Background|lightgrey}}}; font-size: 95%;" | '''{{{Name|{{PAGENAME}}}}}'''<br />''Classification & external resources''

at the top of the coding, simply replace with:

{| class="infobox vcard" width="200" cellspacing="0" style="font-size: 95%;"
!style="background: {{{Background|lightgrey}}}; font-size: 95%;" | '''{{{Name|{{PAGENAME}}}}}'''<br />''Classification & external resources''

as can be seen here.

Cheers. --Bob (talk) 16:53, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Done. NCurse work 19:45, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm sorry, Bob, but the edit changed the whole table. I had to revert it. Please let me know if you can fix that bug and I make the required change. NCurse work 21:36, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I forgot the colspan... Here is the code for the top two lines:

{| class="infobox" width="200" cellspacing="0" style="font-size: 95%; text-align:left"
| style="text-align: center; background: {{{Background|lightgrey}}}; font-size: 95%;" colspan="2" | '''{{{Name|{{PAGENAME}}}}}'''<br />''Classification & external resources''

This should work. --Bob (talk) 01:05, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Done. It seems to be good this time. Thank you for the bugfix. NCurse work 09:06, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Interwiki link

Please add a interwiki link as follows: [[sv:Mall:Infobox sjukdom]] Best regards Ulner (talk) 22:48, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

So added to teh /doc subpage.David Ruben Talk 03:17, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Hello, can you correct french inter-wiki link? It should be fr:Modèle:Infobox Maladie instead of the current (incorrect) one. Jotunn (talk) 12:09, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Phobias

Once in a Blue Moon (talk · contribs) has made sensible suggestion for infobox for phobias (see Wikipedia:List of infoboxes/Proposed/Infobox clinical phobias). In much the same way as Template:Drugbox allows for 3 "flavours", the presence of a few optional phobia parameters would seem easiest added to this infobox, rather than have multiple similar infoboxes to be maintained.

I've suggested a simplier method of coding using just 3 parameters, if anyone is intested please comment atWikipedia talk:List of infoboxes/Proposed/Infobox clinical phobias.David Ruben Talk 03:17, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

That infobox makes the classic error of trying to stuff unsuitable material into the box (e.g. explanations and proposed causes). JFW | T@lk 07:02, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
I've already suggested removing the "proposed causes" leaving just the naming and classification as per Specific phobia#Categories of specific phobias - still appropriate for addition to the infobox or fatally flawed infobox intensions ? :-) David Ruben Talk 14:21, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Field of medicine

Just to start floating an idea, how about a "Field of medicine" (or better phrased) parameter to indicate whether a disease comes under "Endocrinology", "Cardiology", "Neurology" etc? I weakly opposed adding specific clinical details, as suggested above in Template talk:Infobox Disease#Clinical information on infobox, but this is just for overall (noncontentious, I hope) classification.

I'm also tempted to suggest allowing the infobox to then automatically add the article to relevant categories, eg Category:Cardiology. A quick check though shows that many Category:Fields have sub-categories, and unless we have "Field" and "Subfield" this might get awkward ? David Ruben Talk 03:17, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

This would be a major undertaking, and may require help from a bot. Also, there are numerous conditions that involve lots of organ systems (e.g. sarcoidosis) and would need to be in lots of categories. 07:02, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
True - would sarcoidossis count, in respect of this proposal, then as primarily "immunological" or perhaps "multisystem" and so the classification could still have just the single (very basic, top-level) entry ? David Ruben Talk 14:17, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Why do you to add it to the infobox? --WS (talk) 19:43, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

sorry I don't understand - was that meant why do we need to add it ? - thought was for classification purposes. One could expand idea from just affected target field of medicine (respiratory medicine, cardiology etc) to the surgical seive of mechanism of cause (infectious, inflammatory, etc), but that would be even more controversial in a lot of articles. As I said, it was just a float of a weak-idea to see what others felt, I appreciate there would be important issues to address if others thought useful :-) David Ruben Talk 02:30, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Clinical info on this template

I support placing clinical information within this template, contrary to what has been done before. This information can include:

  • Class(es) of disease (i.e. virus, autoimmune disorder)
  • Age groups most commonly affected
  • Gender most commonly affected
  • (Common) symptoms
  • (Common) causes
  • (Common) methods of diagnosis
  • (Common) methods of treatment
  • Possible outcomes —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tatterfly (talk • contribs) 18:51, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

ICD-10 links in Dysmenorrhea article box do not work

The ICD-10 links from the disease infobox at Dysmenorrhea do not work. Can anyone explain why this is? If you fix it, would you explain, here? Thank you. 98.217.45.218 (talk) 14:34, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I have fixed the links. (The explanation is complex, but if you want the details: first read the documentation at at Template:ICD10 and Template talk:ICD10. Then, go to the WHO ICD10 site, and search for "Dysmenorrhea", and click on the "Primary dysmenorrhoea" link. Then scroll to the top of the page. You'll see that "N80" is the first code on the page, so that's the value that needs to be in the last parameter.) --Arcadian (talk) 17:25, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Thank you, I understand. 98.217.45.218 (talk) 17:32, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
I've mildly highlighted this distinction (the code of the condition and the code at the top of the webpage that this is listed under) a little stronger in the description with underlining of "LinkMajor - The major coding at the top of webpage in which ..." - hope this helps with the WHO's complex addressing system and this external link template :-) David Ruben Talk 21:12, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Unnecessary specification of {PAGENAME}

{{editprotected}}
To avoid editors having to type in "Name = {PAGENAME}", please replace every instance of 

{{{Name}}}

with 

{{{Name|{{PAGENAME}}}}}

Thanks, Smith609 Talk 17:28, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Every instance (the one) of the {{{name}}} parameter in this template already defaults to {{PAGENAME}}. Nihiltres{t.l} 06:14, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

Template:Infobox Disease → Template:Infobox condition — A better name for many uses that are not diseases. -- Ned Scott 04:36, 26 September 2008 (UTC) — Ned Scott 04:36, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.
  • Suppport, per discussion above. --Arcadian (talk) 08:40, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  • (very) Weak oppose - not needed. As previous discussion above highlighted (#Disease is inapropriate for many symptom-based neuropsychiatric conditions) the name of the template is immaterial as not shown to readers. I would (weakly) equally feel uneasy calling pneumonia a condition (on a par with baldness, freckles, obesity) rather than a disease. Clearly "Infobox medical conditions disorders and diseases" is just overpedantic and not needed, and "Infobox medical problem" feels awkward and perhaps limited to just social shyness or discomfort of having to wear a plaster cast in midst of summer. David Ruben Talk 11:08, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose. WP Naming conventions don't apply as this is an editor-only name. No satisfactory catch-all PC term is available. Colin°Talk 11:30, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  • How is that a valid reason to oppose? We re-name editor-only items all the time. Less experienced editors are likely to be confused by the template name, making this "editor only issue" worthy of a rename. A rename would require absolutely no effort from us and have several positive effects, so what's the hang up here? -- Ned Scott 04:34, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose unnecessary --WS (talk) 21:03, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Honestly, what's with the sticks in the mud here? I've been pretty good with making popular templates, maybe I'll just make a duplicate and make it substantially better, at the new name. Less confusion and less offensive. I don't really mean to be rude, but where does "unnecessary" come from? -- Ned Scott 03:42, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
Well you ask for our opinion here, and I don't think it is needed to move it. I don't think it is a problem at all if psychiatric conditions have a disease infobox, but that is just my opinion. And even if you rename it, it still links to the diseases database and two international classifications of diseases. To rename the template would just be trying to be overly political correct I think. I don't have any problem with the suggested other names either, but the current name is just as good so I would prefer keeping the current name. --WS (talk) 18:10, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough. -- Ned Scott 23:55, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Support "Infobox medical condition" as suggested below. Also agree with Ned Scott that there's no harm in relisting the discussion if he can't get in touch with the opposing editors. Dekimasuよ! 02:41, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose - my daily life is centered on using the ICD in its various forms (back to the sixth revision) and there is no title for this infobox that comes anywhere near describing all the different codable concepts covered by the ICD. To pick a few: Bronchopneumonia NOS (J18.0) [a disease]; Congenital absence of ovary (Q50.0) [an anomaly]; Alcohol dependence (F10.2) [a disorder]; Delayed delivery after artificial rupture of membranes (O75.5) [a condition]; Fall from tree (W14} [an external cause of injury]; Kidney donor (Z52.4) [a reason for health encounter]. There just simply isn't one overarching word that covers all of these and there are others. However, "disease" covers most of the chapters of the ICD and therefore (remembering the purpose of this infobox is indicate classification) disease is the least inappropriate background name. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 08:00, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:
Perhaps Template:Infobox Medical condition might be less ambiguous? — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 04:46, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
Note prior discussion #Disease is inapropriate for many symptom-based neuropsychiatric conditions, where point that name of template is hidden from reader makes this relatively unimportant. "Infobox Medical condition" indeed better disampiguation, howeverer as only 1st word normally capitalised then as "Infobox medical condition". I can still envisage some objecting to their situation being a "medical condition" at all, but as templates are not shown to readership, what counts is ease of use for editors (likewise {{fact}}-tagging is used not as an assertion that a point is true, but to highlight that a point needs a citation to verify). David Ruben Talk 10:57, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
No one is claiming this is a life or death situation. Being a back-burner issue is no reason to oppose a rename that requires no effort at all. The only reason I'm making a formal proposal is because the template is protected. Redirects cover all old uses, software automatically fixes any double redirects, so one only needs to press the button once. Given that this can and will help reduce editor confusion and avoid offending a great many others, I don't see why we shouldn't consider this. -- Ned Scott 04:37, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm not going to say support or oppose (not yet anyway), but do feel that Template:Infobox condition doesn't cut it. If Template:Infobox Disease is to be moved, I consider Template:Infobox medical condition a much better option. Perhaps this could be updated on the WP:RM page? Maedin\talk 07:24, 8 October 2008 (UTC)


Throwing this out there.. how about Template:Infobox Medical diagnosis? -- Ned Scott 03:49, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Two of the editors opposing this are now on Wikibreak. I doubt anyone will close this early, but just in case anyone is thinking of doing so, please wait until they are active again. I honestly want to understand the objections here, and see if there is a way to find a solution that is satisfactory to them. -- Ned Scott 04:04, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

eMedicine website restructured

The eMedicine website has been restructured. The old use of the eMedicineSubj & eMedicineTopic parameters still works as the eMedicine website internally redirects to the new URLs

Hence in the past for the url http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/topic43.htm# we would set eMedicineSubj as 'emerg' and eMedicineTopic as '43'.

However anyone now searching for a suitable eMedicine article is going to be confronted with a rather different eMedicine url to use: http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/806890-overview and so now set the eMedicineSubj parameter always to the fixed literal text of 'article' and eMedicineTopic gets set to the article page number of '806890'.

I was tempted to consider providing a new single parameter name of perhaps eMedicine but I think not as:

  • For backwards compatablity {{eMedicine}} and {{eMedicine2}} must still require at least 2 obligatory parameters to be defined, and this template should be consistant with the approach those templates use
  • Indeed this template's eMedicine_mult parameter is normally defined using the {{eMedicine2}} template and so may have a mix of existing {{eMedicine2|<<field>>|<<topic number>>}} use, as well as now additional links using a {{eMedicine2|article|<<article number>>}} style. Just too confusing to have this infobox with variable & mixed parameter numbers
  • Easier, IMHO, to maintain for existing users of this template (who wont all come looking to this template discussion page) an expectation to see in general at eMedicine a "<space name>/<number value>" ending to the URL they find at eMedicine.
  • Finally we still need to allow for the option of linking to a seach list at eMedicine if too many individual articles to include. So as at present: eMedicineSubj is set to 'search' and eMedicineTopic is the search expression to be used (as set out in point 9 of the this template's documentation).

If people really, really feel that it would be better to code the infobox for new eMedicine structure by use of just a single eMedicine parameter, despite my objection points above, please let me know quickly before we need undo too many instances of others using the curent modified template. David Ruben Talk 06:31, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

ICHD-2 Classification

{{Cleanup-ICHD}}

This banner has been added to the top of the page for Cluster headache, but there is no way to add an ICHD-2 Classification to the Disease Infobox. Could this be added? I have searched long and hard to find out how to add this and have seen no other way than through official modification from higher power above. Thanks.

Link to the official classification from IHS for ICHD-2: http://ihs-classification.org/en/02_klassifikation/02_teil1/03.01.00_cluster.html

---Johngallias (talk) 00:05, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

CommentI don't think that it is appropriate to add ICHD (in either edition) to this template. It's only going to be useful for a handful of articles. The classifications that are in the template have a broad use across multiple disciplines and applications. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 05:59, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

it interwiki

please add interlink to italian wikipedia: [[it:Template:Infobox Malattia]] --LuckyzTell Me 10:08, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Styling updates

I've created a new sandbox for this template which contains some tweaks to the styling of this template to bring it into line with the defaults of other infoboxes. A comparison of old versus new can be found at the test cases page. Comments? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:01, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Support. (I'd also recommending updating Template:Infobox Symptom, as they are essentially the same.) --Arcadian (talk) 17:23, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
Already done. I'd actually prefer if this template moved to the header styling of {{Infobox Symptom}} as well, but that can be discussed afterwards. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:10, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
How would it work for code ranges such as the ICD-9 one on the Pneumonia article. I wouldn't be keen to have the ends of a range on different lines. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 08:27, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
Example added to the test cases page. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:43, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
Support. Standing the text off from the edge of the box is an improvement on the old version. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 08:54, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Requesting sync, then, as this helps on the road to further consistency / maintainability fixes. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:21, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Resolved
 – Done, but if there's issues with it, let an admin know so it can be reverted back or fixed. Hiding T 11:33, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

NHS Direct Online

Could we add NHS Direct Online? Someone has been spamming it, but I think it should be in the infobox. Problem is their links aren't uniform... I've made some test edits but the problem was with two words, the link malfunctioned. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 18:48, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I think the usual precedent for the life cycle is to first build dedicated templates for use in the external links section, which gives us experience about how to parameterize. I agree that the NHS Direct Online are of an extraordinarily high quality, and if the URL templates proved stable and scalable, I could see myself supporting this addition to the infobox (though I'd want to see some examples of exactly what was being added.) --Arcadian (talk) 19:50, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
Questions What particular information will be added to the infobox through adding links to NHS Direct Online? And how will adding this information to the infobox complement what is already there? Beeswaxcandle (talk) 09:46, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Further work

Now that the previous change has been rolled out, I've made a few more tweaks to the layout to bring it into line with other infobox templates (and to make it look more like {{infobox Symptom}}. Comparison is on the test cases page again. After that it's just a cases of moving over to use {{infobox}} directly, which will be straightforward. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:15, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

What are you gently leading us to? I'm not sure where (and why) we are heading. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 09:09, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. Please clarify. --Arcadian (talk) 19:20, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
The {{infobox}} base template makes it much easier to maintain and update templates based on it than hand-coding them out of wikitables - take a look at the code for {{infobox Symptom}}, which I've just converted, to see this. There won't be any further changes in actual output. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:37, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Arcadian, you have been de facto the maintainer of this and its sister templates (symptoms and procedures). How do you feel/think about moving across to to the {{infobox}} base template? From my perspective as a classification expert, as long as it continues to work and behave well, then the code behind it doesn't worry me. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 09:52, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
Support. Arcadian (talk) 12:52, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

{{editprotected}} Requesting sync with the sandbox again as there has is consensus for this change. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:16, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

 Done with a few tweaks of my own. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:09, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Alt attribute in infobox image

{{editprotected}} As per WP:ALT I just now added alt attributes to all but one of the images in Autism, but since {{Infobox Disease}} doesn't support this I couldn't do it for the lead image. I earlier ran into a similar problem with Philitas of Cos and {{Infobox Writer}} and made the obvious change to that template, which works; please see Template talk:Infobox Writer #Alt attribute can now be correctly supported. To do the same thing here, please make the following change to {{Infobox Disease}}:

! colspan=2 style="text-align: center" {{!}} [[File:{{{Image}}}|{{{Width|190}}}px|alt={{{Alt|}}}]]

I made the change to the sandbox and tested it there, using a new test case that I just added to Template:Infobox Disease/testcases. You can just install the current sandbox to the template. Thanks.

By the way, is there some procedure for saying "add alt attribute support to all infobox templates"? Perhaps I should post a request at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Infoboxes? It's a bit tedious to have to compose these change requests for each individual infobox template. Eubulides (talk) 20:23, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Insomuch as the actual code changes required may vary from template to template, I think they need to be requested manually. Pinging the project would be a good way of bringing this to the wider attention of the community though. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:20, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 Done, although this could use some further thought. Presumably, if no alt is specified then it would be better to use the caption (if specified) rather than nothing? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:26, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
That would result in screen readers reading both the caption and the alt text, no? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:39, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
Oh. Maybe! Still think it needs proper discussion somewhere. I may bring it up at Village Pump. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:20, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
There's currently a thread at Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates #Alt text in images. I agree with Chris Cunningham that the duplication wouldn't be helpful. It's not clear that we have the best solution now, though. Eubulides (talk) 19:00, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Infobox conversion complete

{{editprotected}}

I've now converted the sandbox to use {{infobox}}. Comparison between old and new is on the test cases page as before. Requesting sync as this is a low-impact change which helps considerably in future maintenance of the template. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:18, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Done. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 13:38, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Sadly it's now broken the work-around that allowed an mw:Extension:ImageMap by writing it as a caption without an image. See Nitrogen narcosis. I suppose I can't complain because the caption is not meant to hold images, but it means I could put an imagemap in the article infobox before, and now I don't know how to. Is this really improving the encyclopedia? --RexxS (talk) 18:01, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
Well, that was an ugly hack, not merely because of its abuse of "|Caption=", but because it presented textual tabular data as an image instead of as natural form, which is a table. As per WP:OUTBOX, often a better way to present info that isn't naturally supported by an infobox is to put a do-it-yourself infobox after the main infobox. I've just now done this for Nitrogen narcosis. One hacky example isn't a powerful argument against the change to this template, though of course if hacks like this are common that would be a different matter. Eubulides (talk) 19:31, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
It was an ugly hack from an editing point of view—and not my idea, as I originally used just an image—but the change to an imagemap was clearly an improvement. Obviously, it's a pity that these templates don't accept imagemaps, even though maps often have an "easter-egg" quality to them. I have tried many times to present information like this as a table, but HTML is inherently incapable of displaying a column of figures with aligned decimal points (as you can see in Nitrogen narcosis). It just doesn't look right in the same way that a well-crafted, optimised image (with proper alt text) can do. I'm tempted to just write the whole thing in HTML, but I suspect that the templates provide metadata that would then be lost. --RexxS (talk) 20:16, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
In my experience the hassle of maintaining an image like that far outweighs any trivial advantages in appearance. But we may have differing opinions about appearance: to my eye the current version has a table that is uglier than the version I put in, mostly because it unnecessarily expands the table to be the same width as the infobox. And if you compare the imagemap (on the left below) with a mildly altered version of the table I put in (on the right), to my eye the table version is just as readable, is more compact, and is much more usable by a naive reader (wikilinks easily seen; you can cut text from the table, etc.). (And the decimal points are just as nicely aligned, at least in my browser.) To each their own, I guess. Eubulides (talk) 09:40, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Gas  		 Relative
narcotic
potency
 Ne  0.3
 H2  0.6
 N2  1.0
 O2  1.7
 Ar  2.3
 Kr  7.1
 CO2 20.0
 Xe 25.6
Relative narcotic potency: Ne=0.3; H2=0.6; N2=1; O2=1.7; Ar=2.3; Kr=7.1; CO2=20.0; Xe=25.6NeonHydrogenNitrogenOxygenArgonKryptonCarbon dioxideXenon
I guess I'm biased by working on websites where the look is dictated by graphic designers who think that presentation is paramount. Knowing when to use a good image is the solution. I'd certainly be criticised for presenting a table where a column of figures don't have their decimal points aligned. Your table, despite the padding, still has the last two rows too far out for my eye (on my browser). But of course, with text, we can't control the font rendering in the client, since users may override our choice of font. I'm amazed that you find the wider infobox uglier - it looks so much better to me <grin>. Appearance is, of course, always a question of taste. Disclaimer: I'm viewing at 1920x1200 with the contents box shown, so I get a lot of horrible white space, that means keeping the height of the infobox down improves the appearance for me. That's the clincher, by the way; the original image is striking, but far too tall (in my eye), so presenting the information as a table now has all the advantages. As I can now move it out of the lead, I may try that, and then I would agree that the compact version you made would be better (although I'd still prefer to right-align + margin the numbers, rather than center and pad them). Thanks again! --RexxS (talk) 14:18, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
It's trivial to add a new attribute for image maps; have a look at template:infobox Disease/testcases#Image map support for an implementation I just cooked up. This is a far better solution than hacking the caption element. But if you want the current hack to continue to work, all you need to do is ensure that an image is also specified (or the caption element won't be shown) - file:blank.svg along with Width=0 is a good choice. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:28, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
That's a great solution - thank you for suggesting it. I did consider setting "|Image=" to a blank file, after I studied the recent changes, but as I also disapproved of putting the imagemap in the caption, I considered that would be a "hack-too-far". Possibly, this has already been discussed and rejected, but when I create databases, I often add an extra "blob" field because the client will always think of something they want which wasn't in the original spec; perhaps templates might benefit from a "|Data-extra=" parameter for those situations where something unusual may be required? --RexxS (talk) 14:18, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
That's what the new diagram attribute I've added to the sandbox code is for: I could change the title if you want. In general, though, I think there's consensus that wildcard attributes shouldn't be used in infobox templates because it encourages users to add, well, random data to them. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:53, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
I suspected that would be the case. There's always a delicate tension in making templates between catering for common possibilities and defeating the point of the template in the first place. I can see that "|diagram" would be an alias for "|data10", but I'm not going to suggest any change in that. It should settle any need for additional imagemaps in the infoxbox quite nicely. Thanks once more. --RexxS (talk) 20:08, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

MeshID

.../MB_cgi?field=uid&term={{{MeshID|}MeshID}}}]}}
Trevor MacInnis,[4] There's a small bug; the MeshID only displays the link, excluding the number; should be {{{MeshID|}}}{{!}}{{{MeshID}}}] ChyranandChloe (talk) 22:22, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

+1 --84.44.177.67 (talk) 11:43, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Problem with missing eMedicine tags

It seems there's some kind of problem with this template when the eMedicine tags are missing, as at Neurasthenia. Can someone have a look at the issue? Thanks! --RobinHood70 (talk) 00:30, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I just came here to report this. Someone should fix it (I don't have the knowledge). Nazgul02 (talk) 12:24, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Adjusting to default thumb size

{{editprotected}} When I used Special:Preferences to set my default thumb size to 250px, and then visited Autism, I noticed that the infobox image did not change in size, which meant that the relative sizes of images in that article were out of whack: the lead image in the infobox (because it remained at 190px) incorrectly appeared to be less important than the other images (which had grown from 180px to 250px), even though the lead image is the best image in the article and should appear to be more important.

To fix this, I modified this template (in the sandbox) to default the size to "|frameless|upright=1.06|" instead of to "|190px|". This way, the image size is now 1.06 times the default thumb size, and therefore adjusts more gracefully to changes in the default thumb size. There is no change in behavior unless the user has selected a thumb size other than the 180px default. Also, there is no change in behavior if the invoker of the template uses |Width= to specify a size. Could you please install the sandbox patch? Thanks. Eubulides (talk) 03:23, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

No problem, done.  Skomorokh, barbarian  03:52, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Links

Based upon the feedback above, I will be reverting this template to the last working version if the new version isn't fixed in the next week or so. --Arcadian (talk) 02:32, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}

Fixed in the sandbox. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:55, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

 Done —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 18:14, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
Looks good! Thanks, guys. --RobinHood70 (talk) 19:28, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
The Mesh link is still broken. --Arcadian (talk) 01:24, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
And obviously fixed now, by you (just to get this off my radar). Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:08, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
It's still broken (the link still is a bare numbered link). I'm hesitant to revert back to the last working version, though, since there have been so many subsequent edits. --Arcadian (talk) 11:52, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
Try the sandbox now; looks like a slip of the fingers at some point. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:09, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
Looks good to me -- thanks. I've updated it from the sandbox. --Arcadian (talk) 19:09, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

GeneReviews support

{{editprotected}}

An IP address added a GeneReviews external link to FG syndrome, and after looking at it I thought that it'd be nicer to put this kind of link into the disease infobox. I propose adding support for GeneReviews to {{Infobox disease}}. To help implement this I've made a patch to the sandbox and have tested the result in the autism infobox in the test cases. Eubulides (talk) 20:55, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

No further comment so I added an {{editprotected}}. Eubulides (talk) 01:47, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

 Done, I'll leave the change to the documentation field to yourself.  Ronhjones  (Talk) 02:31, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Radiopaedia.org

I work over at radiopaedia.org where we are trying to create a wiki of radiology for radiologists. Lots of articles and cases with a growing userbase. Articles are becoming increasingly mature (meningioma article). I wonder if there would be consideration of adding a link to radiopaedia articles where they (on merit) are considered a good external resource. Clearly, with a vested interest, I wouldn't make such a change, but wondered what people's thoughts were. Drjermy (talk) 09:55, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

The life cycle for infobox additions usually involves creating a dedicated template link usable in the external link section (like Template:OMIM) and allowing it to mature and gain acceptance before adding it to the infobox. I'd recommend creating Template:Radiopaedia (with a blue link to Radiopaedia) and using it to replace the article links found here, as opposed to adding a new link to the infobox at this time. --Arcadian (talk) 13:28, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Thanks - I've started the template (after some reading) and will see how things go. Thanks for the suggestion. drjermy (talk) 17:51, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Case study: Sleepwalking [somnambulism]

What is the definition of the disorder....???
and
What are the criteria to diagnosis it...??? --222.64.16.239 (talk) 08:01, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Could someone add these two traits into the infobox please --222.64.16.239 (talk) 08:04, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

  • This infobox is not used for this type of information. It is used for links to various classifications. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 09:05, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

DECIPHER

There is an effort in place to add content from DECIPHER (the DatabasE of Chromosomal Imbalance and Phenotype in Humans using Ensembl Resources) to Wikipedia. My understanding is that it is essentially a genetic encyclopaedia of rare deletion/duplication syndromes, mapped to the human genome by a large international consortium. The editor involved in transferring the content across has asked about the possibility of including a link to the DECIPHER page in this infobox. It seems a good idea to me, as it gives those interested in these syndromes a direct link to DNA level information on which genes are affected, which is missing on OMIN. See, for example, DECIPHER's entry for 1p36 deletion syndrome versus OMIN's. Thoughts or objections? Rockpocket 10:12, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

A necessary (but not sufficient) condition for links to be included in infoboxes is that the links have already been used on Wikipedia, and been proven over time to be useful, appropriate, and with stable URLs. The best way to do this is probably to follow the process described above. --Arcadian (talk) 11:08, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
Ah yes, good idea (and another good idea would have been for me to read the talkpage in advance of asking a redundant question). Thanks also for your comment on my talk page. I'll be in touch when we have a time and place. Rockpocket 11:37, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
I would like to add to what Rockpocket has mentioned regarding the usefulness for linking to DECIPHER the following. DECIPHER provides a) links to affected genes, but also to overlapping, anonymised entries of patients' DNA and clinical features that have given consent to make this information available b) interactive visualisation systems that integrate all this data and allow users to navigate through it c) bioinformatics tools that predict the likelihood of specific genes causing symptoms. It is not possible to add this information to wikipedia but it is potentially extremely valuable to clinicians and other affected patients for consulation purposes. Regards, Manuelcorpas (talk) 10:29, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
As Arcadian suggests, what I'll do first is create a template for linking to the DECIPHER page that we can add to each syndrome srticle that has a DECIPHER entry. Once that is up and running, we can reasses it after a while and see if it is appropriate to transfer the link to the infox. My broadband is (finally) getting installed at home tonight, so I'll get cracking on making the template soon! Rockpocket 10:26, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
I support Rockpocket's plan. (When creating the template, I recommend including an internal wikilink to Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, to help make the template as self-documenting as possible.) If you need technical assistance, let me know. --Arcadian (talk) 01:04, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Multiple links for each line

Is it possible to have multiple links for each line? I know we can do this for emedicine and the ICD stuff but even the disease database could sometimes use two links. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:17, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

A second link for DDB can be coded using Template:DiseasesDB2. --Arcadian (talk) 00:02, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

ICD9

This designation should be ICD9-CM, the version used in the US, since ICD9 is superseded by ICD10? Ward20 (talk) 13:35, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Technically, yes, it should be ICD-9-CM. However, since the US is the main residual user of any version of ICD-9 the point is moot. However, I do look forward to the US catching up with the world and moving to ICD-10. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 05:45, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
We still use ICD 9 s for billing in Canada aswell. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:05, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
But Canada has been using ICD-10-CA since 2000 for morbidity and mortality clinical coding. This is my understanding of the purpose of the infobox. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 06:19, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
We use the ICD 9 codes for billing in British Columbia. I do not know about MM.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:44, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Side the "|" is place on

There is a tool WP:AWB that put this thing to the right side of the text rather than the left. We need a consistent format across all pages. Should we move it in these templates? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:46, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

No - easiest on left side, as then unfilled parameter values are simpler to add without the disruption that occurs if the right-side "|" gets deleted, also IMHO looks neater with all the "|" lined up left-side. Hence, rather than:
name = Foo |
image = Bar |
alt = |
caption = Foobar |

as 

| name = Foo
| image = Bar
| alt =
| caption = Foobar

and especially where blank template is provided for copy&paste when spaces added for the "=" to line up too: 

| name    = Foo
| image   = Bar
| alt     =
| caption = Foobar
Finally left-side is used by Template:Infobox. David Ruben Talk 04:48, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
I do not care which side it ends up on just wish it where consistent that is all. We need to let AWB know which side... Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:52, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

New OMIM site

While NCBI still hosts OMIM files, the official OMIM database has shifted to a new site: [5]. Would it be possible to change the infobox linking to reflect this change? ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 01:56, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Is the OMIM content literally identical to that hosted by National Center for Biotechnology Information? If the content is the same, then server speeds and database integration is likely in the long run to be superior at NCBI. And to use the example of cystic fibrosis, a link to http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/omim/219700 has a more self-documenting provenance than does http://www.omim.org/entry/219700. Victor A. McKusick died in 2008. I'd hate for us to facilitate a schism. --Arcadian (talk) 19:24, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
I know people who work for OMIM, and apparently such a schism has already occurred (hence the new site). The NCBI site has not been updated since February 2011, and it is unclear what future the data has at that site. OMIM owns the data, and it is only proper to link things to the official site. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 19:52, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
In that case, I don't object if you want to implement the change. The change would be implemented by altering the URL embedded in Template:OMIM, Template:OMIM2, Template:OMIM3, Template:OMIM4, and Template:OMIM5. But before making this change -- can you point to an entry where the OMIM.org site differs from the NCBI site? --Arcadian (talk) 01:58, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
See for example http://omim.org/entry/614052 versus http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/omim/614052. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 15:52, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
I'm persuaded, and support the proposed change. --Arcadian (talk) 21:31, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
I think this is pretty open-and-shut; NCBI is clearly an outdated site. However, I do not have permission to change any of these templates (lowly reviewer-rollbacker that I am), so it would be appreciated if someone with the proper access could do so. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 22:47, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
I made the necessary changes. Btw: only the first and the fifth template seem to be protected, should the others be added as well? --WS (talk) 13:47, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
This template still links to NCBI. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 16:36, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
Sorry, changed the omim templates but forgot the disease infobox itself. Fixed now. --WS (talk) 08:18, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
FYI, you can find more of these by checking here. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 02:51, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Update links

The ICD links should declared as [[International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems|ICD]] to bypass the redirects. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 18:00, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Alternatively, they could be made [[International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems|ICD]]-[[ICD-10|10]] and [[International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems|ICD]]-[[List of ICD-9|9]]. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 18:02, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
This is on Template:Infobox disease/doc - which is not edit protected...Skier Dude (talk) 03:15, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
Uh no...? They are |label1= and |label2= fields of the infobox. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 03:22, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 Done Skier Dude (talk) 05:45, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

PubMed Health

Can the template include links to the PubMed Health pages under NCBI? A couple of example pages: Esophageal atresia: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001957/ Pleurisy: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002347/ Catsintheattic (talk) 23:15, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Instead of or in addition to MedlinePlus? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:00, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
In addition to... Different information on each site. Catsintheattic (talk) 00:36, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
If you look at the medline and pubmed for pleurisy they are almost exactly the same word for word. [6] [7] I do not see the justification for both.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:46, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
If I had to choose, I'd go with PubMedHealth because of the TOC and other info on the right. Also PubMedHealth has links to medlineplus as a reference sidebox. MedlinePlus doesn't seem to point to PubMedHealth. The reason for keeping both would be for backwards compatibility and legacy information and familiarity with medlineplus. I haven't had any preference to one over the other, but I do know that when I search for 'pleurisy' on both sites, pubmedhealth took me right there while medlineplus pointed me to things related to pleural disorders. Catsintheattic (talk) 01:08, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Very minor inconsistency

These prompts display as follows:

  • ICD-10
  • ICD-9
  • ICD-O:

where only the rare final one affixes a colon. The colon problem can be diagnosed on the colorectal cancer page.
And why do I feel dumb typing that?
Varlaam (talk) 03:18, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Edit request on 5 May 2012

Hi, I wonder if you could pick up my changes on the Template:Infobox_disease. I have never tried to edit an infobox template before, so please let me know if I went about this in the wrong way.

I work at NCBI on the bookshelf, and our site serves the GeneReviews. Yesterday, I noticed that this page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperkalemic_periodic_paralysis, has a broken link to GeneReviews. I dug a little, and found that the template uses an old form of our URLs, and the "ID" that was used in those URLs is no longer easy to figure out. So the individual used the "NBK" number, which is the correct ID, but doesn't work in the old URL format.

Since there are no doubt quite a few pages that correctly use the old URL format with the old-style IDs, I couldn't change the semantic meaning of GeneReviewsID. So, I invented a new field, called GeneReviewsNBK, which should be the prefered field.

I edited the template sandbox, the documentation page, and the test cases, and I created some more test cases in my user area. Klortho (talk) 02:40, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

I've copied your changes over to the live template. -- WOSlinker (talk) 10:18, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
Thanks! Klortho (talk) 13:50, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
This is an innocuous test edit to verify that I'm getting email notifications. Please excuse the noise! ZZombo (talk) 01:11, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

GeneReviews_Mult form?

Cutis laxa has four GeneReviews entries in External links "FBLN5-Related Cutis Laxa", "ATP6V0A2-Related Cutis Laxa", "EFEMP2-Related Cutis Laxa", "ATP7A-Related Copper Transport Disorders". I think Spinocerebellar ataxia also has a list. Would a GeneReviews_Mult form giving NBK,title pairs each on a separate line in the info box be worthwhile? OMIM_mult may use a helper OMIM template. RDBrown (talk) 03:20, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

I'd be interested in this. I can't speak to whether or not it would be useful, but I'd like to learn how to do it. I fixed the GeneReviews links (see above) back in April, and it was a bit of a challenge. This would be fun. Let me know if you want help with this. Klortho (talk) 01:40, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
I think you need to add a new parameter, something and add it as part of the GeneReview line.
Something like
{{#if: {{{GeneReviewsNBK|}}}
    | [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/{{{GeneReviewsNBK}}}/ {{#if: {{{GeneReviewsName|}}} | {{{GeneReviewsName}}} | {{{GeneReviewsNBK}}} }}]
    {{{GeneReviews_mult|}}} }}
(code changed to be move the Name test inside the link). Then you need a helper template for the list. For OMIM it's OMIM2. Since GeneReviews are a subset of NLM books maybe named NLMBook2 rather than GeneReviews2 (The suffix 2 is by analogy to OMIM2, since it doesn't prefix with a description). Code modified from OMIM. (Parameter 1 ≡ GeneReviewsNBK, Parameter 2 ≡ GeneReviewsName)
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/{{{1}}}/ {{#if: {{{2|}}} |{{{2}}}|{{{1}}}}}]<noinclude>
{{documentation}}
<!-- Add categories and interwikis to the /doc subpage, not here. -->
</noinclude>

Since I don't yet know how to use a Sandbox to write/test templates, so you'll need to ask or find the documentation. Hope this helps. RDBrown (talk) 13:20, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I think that will work. I'd like to name the helper template NCBIBook or NCBIBook2. I checked with the OMIM example, and it looks like Template:OMIM produces a non-abbreviated link, and Template:OMIM2 produces the short link used in this infobox. We will have to add a <br> tag at the end of the NCBIBook2 template, to make sure each title appears on it's own line. I tested that on my sandbox and it works (see the "OMIM" entries). Klortho (talk) 03:47, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
I got something pretty close, working here. I had to put the <br> tag at the beginning of the NCBIBook2 template. I don't like this break tag, because it means that the NCBIBook2 template can't be used as a generic linking template. Maybe the answer is to create NCBIBook3 that uses NCBIBook2, and adds the break tag. Anyway, I should be able to finish it tomorrow. Klortho (talk) 04:17, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
Update -- I did most of it, you can see it on the test page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_disease/testcases#Cutis_laxa_.28test_multiple_gene_reviews.29 . I don't love it, because the box is not wide enough, and the titles wrap onto two lines. I don't know if there's any way to fix that. Tomorrow I will work on the documentation and submit the edit request. Klortho (talk) 05:15, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

GeneReviews ID & multiple Mesh ID queries

I would like to fix this problem, but I don't know how to edit the template. I work on the NCBI bookshelf, and our link structure has changed. It would be nice if people could use the book part identifier NBKnnnn, as you tried to do, and that the URL that is generated were of the form http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBKnnnn/. Right now, though, the template is producing URLs of an old form. Klortho (talk) 01:34, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
I made an attempt at fixing this problem, see my edit request below. Klortho (talk) 02:43, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
I will endeavor to add a MESH_mult field to the template. Klortho (talk) 01:12, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
I added the new field, and hopefully it'll be picked up with the same edit request that I submitted for the GeneReviews_mult. I also added the second MeSH term to your page at Hereditary leiomyomatosis and renal cell cancer. If all goes well, you should see two MeSH links there shortly. Klortho (talk) 03:14, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
That's great! Thank you very much for all this, Klortho. —MistyMorn (talk) 11:10, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 23 August 2012

Could you please pick up my changes that are in [[Template::Infobox disease/sandbox]]? They were discussed in the section immediately prior to this one. I added the GeneReviews_mult field, to allow linking to multiple GeneReviews articles.

I made these changes:

I also created these two templates that are used by this:

Update: I also added the Mesh_mult field, per the request above. It is tested here (note the multiple entries for MeSH). It uses this new template:

Klortho (talk) 01:27, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Not done for now: Sorry to be picky, but for the parts of this template and the daughter templates that list entries on multiple lines, could you use the plainlist class instead of <br> tags? You can do this using {{plainlist}} or by adding the class in a div tag (see the plainlist template source code). Plainlist is more standards compliant, and most people on Wikipedia seem to prefer using it these days - we may as well code it in here from the start, rather than having to port the code over later. If you have any questions about implementing it, just let me know. — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 12:14, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
So the example would become
GeneReviews_mult = {{plainlist|
*{{NCBIBook2|NBK5200|ATP6V0A2-Related Cutis Laxa}}
*{{NCBIBook2|NBK54467|EFEMP2-Related Cutis Laxa}}
*{{NCBIBook2|NBK1413|ATP7A-Related Copper Transport Disorders}}
}}

which is slightly more verbose, but avoids the NCBIBook3 template and generalizes to provide multiline lists in other parameters if needed. Sounds good. RDBrown (talk) 14:00, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure that's quite right. I'm concerned about the first item being outside the list. In other words, instead of
  GeneReviewsNBK = NBK5201 |
  GeneReviewsName = FBLN5-Related Cutis Laxa |
  GeneReviews_mult =  {{plainlist|
*{{NCBIBook3|NBK5200|ATP6V0A2-Related Cutis Laxa}} 
*{{NCBIBook3|NBK54467|EFEMP2-Related Cutis Laxa}} 
*{{NCBIBook3|NBK1413|ATP7A-Related Copper Transport Disorders}}
}}
it should really be
  GeneReviews_mult =  {{plainlist|
*{{NCBIBook2|NBK5201|FBLN5-Related Cutis Laxa}}
*{{NCBIBook2|NBK5200|ATP6V0A2-Related Cutis Laxa}} 
*{{NCBIBook2|NBK54467|EFEMP2-Related Cutis Laxa}} 
*{{NCBIBook2|NBK1413|ATP7A-Related Copper Transport Disorders}}
}}
Would that be okay? I guess it would work as well, both ways, but it would be semantically more meaningful if all the items were included in the list. It would mean that someone coming along to add a second gene review would have to rewrite the first entry to include it in the _mult. It might be better to change it so that the canonical way of adding even a single review is with a simple GeneReviews field, like this:
  GeneReviews =  {{NCBIBook2|NBK5201|FBLN5-Related Cutis Laxa}}
and then someone coming along to add a second should just enclose it in the plainlist template. That seems to be the way its done, for example, in the key_people field of Template:Infobox_company/doc.
Sounds reasonable, would need to phase in to convert existing GeneReviews{NBK,Name} usage, but BOTs or tools can help.
If templates can be recursive, then NCBIBook2 itself could generate a single string for 1 or 2 parameters and a plainlist for 3 or more working on pairs of parameters. [8] isn't clear to me on whether this is possible. RDBrown (talk) 22:27, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
I got "template loop detected", here. Nice idea, though! I am almost done. I've been redoing both MeSH and GeneReviews, and working in my user area, User:Klortho/Infobox_disease. Check out the User:Klortho/Infobox_disease/testcases, if you have time. I will work on re-writing the docs tomorrow. Klortho (talk) 03:44, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
Please take a look! User:Klortho/Infobox_disease, User:Klortho/Infobox_disease/doc, and User:Klortho/Infobox_disease/testcases. I worked on the documentation a bit, and hopefully, it is clearer about how to use the _mult fields. But the biggest changes were that I deprecated MeshID, GeneReviewsNBK, and GeneReviewsName. All these fields should still work, and the changes should be completely backward-compatible (see the test cases) but they are no longer documented, and are replaced by "MeSH" and "GeneReviews" fields. If they look okay, I'll merge them into the sandbox, doc, and testcases here, and resubmit this edit request. Klortho (talk) 13:50, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
This should be ready to go. Changes made to sandbox, doc, and testcases. In testcases, not that all of the infoboxes look the same on the left and right (hence, backwards-compatible) except in the specific MeSH and GeneReviews test sections, where I've added the new fields MeSH and GeneReviews. Klortho (talk) 03:03, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi, Mr. Stradivarius! I see that you restored the old version of the doc page, instead of pulling this edit request. Is there anything I can do to document this edit request more, so that it's clear what I did, to help you evaluate it? Was it okay to "deprecate" a commonly used field name, MeshID, in favor of a new one of my own invention, viz., MeSH? I think it's an improvement but others might not agree. Looking forward to your feedback! Klortho (talk) 14:16, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi there. Sorry for the lack of reply - I've actually been putting this off because I thought of a better way of going about doing what you're trying to do, but it will take a little time to work the code up. I'm setting some time aside for it now, though, and I should have a working version for you later on today. — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 08:58, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
Oh, and as for the doc page, that's just standard practice. We wouldn't want users trying to use parameters that don't actually exist in the main template yet, as that's just a recipe for confusion. (And templates are already arcane enough from the perspective of most users.) — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 09:02, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
Ok, I've had a go at coding up a new version. With this code you can use parameters |MeSH2=, |MeSH3= etc. for MeSH and |GeneReviewsNBK2=, |GeneReviewsName2=, |GeneReviewsNBK3=, |GeneReviewsName3= etc. for GeneReviews. This way editors don't have to include external templates - it's all done in the infobox itself, which will make things flexible should anyone want to change them later on. Have a look at my changes to the sandbox and my changes to the testcases page and see what you think. If you think it would be better done another way, we can always work on that too. :) Best — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 11:55, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
That's a lot of curly braces!!  :)
I like how what you've done is easier for the infobox user, because, as you say, they just have to enter MeSH2=, MeSH3=, etc. But I'd pose the obvious question: what if there are more than five of either item?
Also, one thing I'd suggest is that you make use of the {{MeSH2}} template inside this one, so that you don't have to duplicate the form of the URL so many times. While looking at it just now I realized two things: 1, inside that {{MeSH2}} template, I forgot to code MeshYear into a parameter; and 2, the default should now be 2012. The latter points to why it's a good idea to call that template from this one, so that when the canonical URL changes (in this case, 2011 → 2012), it only needs to be updated in one place (but I'm sure you already know this). Likewise, why not use the {{NCBIBook2}} template in the GeneReviews part? Not only reduces maintenance burden, but also makes it look a lot cleaner.
While writing my version, I looked through the Template help pages I could find, Help:Template, Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Infoboxes, mw:Help:Advanced_templates, etc., for how best to do these "mult" fields, but couldn't find anything; so that's why, as I mentioned above, I copied the way it's done in Infobox_company. Is there some writeup anywhere comparing the relative merits of your approach vs. mine, or a "best practices"? I really am concerned about the case where there's more than five; it might be an unfortunate limitation in some cases. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Klortho (talk • contribs) 14:59, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
There's no established best practices in doing these things as far as I know - I've seen things done all sorts of different ways. While I was coding up this version, I actually realised that you can set the table cell class inside {{infobox}} itself, so the way you were trying to do it earlier would look a lot neater. Rather than
| MeSH = {{plainlist|
* {{MeSH2|xxxx}}
* {{MeSH2|xxxx}}
* {{MeSH2|xxxx}}
}}
it would just be
| MeSH =
* {{MeSH2|xxxx}}
* {{MeSH2|xxxx}}
* {{MeSH2|xxxx}}
The reason I chose not to do it this way is because the asterisks have to start on a new line otherwise it doesn't work, and that might well confuse people. If we wanted to do it like {{infobox company}}, we could do it this way:
| MeSH = {{ubl | {{MeSH2|xxxx}} | {{MeSH2|xxxx}} | {{MeSH2|xxxx}} }}
That's not so bad, but perhaps not as user-friendly as it could be. As for the maximum of five in the sandbox version, we could easily change that to ten, twenty, or whatever. ({{ubl}} goes up to 50, by the way.) The only way of making an unlimited number of possible entries would be by using one of the first two of my examples above, but in practical terms I can't see us wanting to use all that many. I'll let you pick a sensible upper limit, if you like the sandbox way. :) As for using {{MeSH2}} and {{NCBIBook2}}, I tend to agree with you, actually. I'll have a go at coding it up - see if you like the results. By the way, we can solve the year problem with one of the magic words, {{CURRENTYEAR}}, so I'll add that to the templates too. — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 16:49, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
I've finished updating the MeSH parts, but it's late here so NCBIBook will have to wait. Let me know what you think of the results so far though. — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 18:34, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
I fixed two bugs and made one optimization in the MeSH part. The first bug was due to using a space before param 1 value in, for example, {{mesh2 | {{{MeSH2|}}} | year = {{{MeshYear2|}}} }} . That causes the generated URL to have a space in it, so the second part of the URL was showing up as the link text, and it looked like duplicate numbers. The second bug was, if MeshYear2 is not defined, you don't get the default CURRENTYEAR inside the {{mesh2}} template, because it's called with "year="; so the year value is the empty string. The optimization was to change this:
{{#if: {{{MeSH2|}}} 
  | {{#if: {{{MeshID|}}}{{{MeSH|}}}{{{MeSH1|}}} 
      | , {{mesh2 | {{{MeSH2|}}} | year = {{{MeshYear2|}}} }} 
      | {{mesh2 | {{{MeSH2|}}} | year = {{{MeshYear2|}}} }} 
    }} 
}}
to this
{{#if: {{{MeSH2|}}} 
  | {{#if: {{{MeshID|}}}{{{MeSH|}}}{{{MeSH1|}}} 
      | , 
    }}
    {{mesh2 | {{{MeSH2|}}} | year = {{{MeshYear2|}}} }}
}}
Finally, I used this Perl script to auto-generate it up to MeSH9. Klortho (talk) 05:00, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Okay, these should be all done (again) now! Here are some notes on what I did with GeneReviews:

  • There is no need to have GeneReviewsID1, GeneReviewsID2, etc. The "ID" form is deprecated in favor of "NBK".
  • Likewise, when using GeneReviewsID, there's no need to check for "Name1", since any infobox that uses "ID" won't have it.

So these turned out to be simpler even than the MeSH part, which has to add the "," delimiters into the list.

I updated the Template:Infobox_disease/testcases, and if you agree with everything, please pick up these changes:

Thanks for all your help, I learned a lot from following your work! Klortho (talk) 06:22, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Ah, good call with the MeSH code there. I did it that way because I've done a few things like that involving line breaks, which templates don't handle very well at all, but you're right that it won't make any difference just with spaces. I've formatted the code a bit and removed CURRENTYEAR as that was already in {{MeSH2}}. And I've gone ahead and copied the code across to the main template, so this edit request is now Done. By the way, you should check to see if any infoboxes have been broken after the old code was deprecated. It might take a while to do by hand, so you might want to look into using AWB to semi-automate the task. Or alternatively there might be a bot that could help, if there are a lot of cases. — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 10:29, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, one more thing. I had to put CURRENTYEAR back in. As it stands now, the MeSH links are broken, and go to URLs like "http://www.nlm.nih.gov/cgi/mesh//MB_cgi?field=uid&term=D001321"; see the test cases. The problem is that in this infobox template you have stuff that resolves to {{mesh2|nnnn|year=}}. Inside the mesh2 template, instead of using the default value for year, since the "year=" is specified, it's getting the empty string. Ideally, I guess, we'd want to put the "|year=" into an #if clause; but I don't know how to get a pipe symbol, "|", into the output value of a template -- I searched a little, and it seems perhaps it is impossible. Klortho (talk) 12:16, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
Oh, one more note about the fields I deprecated -- I didn't remove any functionality, so shouldn't have broken any existing templates. The test cases should verify this. The fields like GeneReviewsID that worked before should still work; but it just means they shouldn't be used from now on. Fields like GeneReviewsID1 never worked, so there's no need to add them to the new template, I think. Klortho (talk) 12:36, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
Gack, sorry about that, that was because I didn't test it properly before adding it to the main template. It wasn't actually a problem with the {{infobox disease}} code, but the {{MeSH2}} code. It turns out that if you use something like {{{a|foo}}}, it behaves differently whether the template calling it uses {{sometemplate|a=}} or {{sometemplate}}. The first one of these uses a blank, "", for the value of "a", but the second one returns "foo". That's because in the first one "a" is specified as a blank parameter, but in the second one, "a" is not specified at all. I've come across this "feature" before but I'd forgotten about it. It should be fixed now. I'm going to protect {{MeSH2}} and {{NCBIBook2}} in line with the main infobox, but don't hesitate to let me know if there's anything you'd like changing. Best — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 21:41, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
Oh, and I've seen at least one infobox that has been broken because of the deprecated code - see Cretinism. Not sure how many others there are out there though. — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 21:47, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
My turn to say Gack! That was not intentional, I never meant to get rid of support for MeshName/MeshNumber (even though maybe they are deprecated -- I couldn't speak to that, actually, because they were never in the documentation, and I'm not sure how they work). I tracked down how it happened. I had originally left those in as separate label/data field, and then when you redid my Mesh-mult scheme, you combined them onto the end of the data field for data8. When I redid that, using my Perl script, I didn't notice that this last "if" block at the end was different from all the others in the pattern, and I dropped it by accident. Anyways, I put them back in, in the sandbox and testcases now. Could you pull it into the main template? Hopefully this will be the end of this one -- the edit request that would not die! I certainly have learned a lot about how to code templates -- it is very hard! Let me ask you, are you looking forward to Lua? Klortho (talk) 00:47, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
Ok, Done. — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 07:47, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

ICD-O prompt

[[International Classification of Diseases for Oncology|ICD-O:]]
It displays with a colon (:) after the prompt, unlike the prompts for the other data points in the infobox.
Varlaam (talk) 07:44, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

What about alternate names?

I noticed the article Atrophodermia vermiculata is nearly all alternate names. Is there a place for that in the or another infobox or template? Biosthmors (talk) 22:51, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

bot maintenance of disease infoboxes

I recently started a discussion at WP:MED around a proposal to expand the information in this template and to maintain this information using a bot. The discussion began here, and has since moved over to User:ProteinBoxBot/Phase_3. I'd personally like to focus on adding new fields for data that is not already in the disease box, but we're happy to take on the role of maintaining existing parameters as well. In any case, feedback is welcome... Cheers, Andrew Su (talk) 05:42, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Wikidata

Shouldn't we make it so the template can incorporate data from wikidata if available? Remember (talk) 12:38, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

What sort of data would wikidata be able to provide that would apply to this Infobox? Beeswaxcandle (talk) 20:29, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
I think all of it. Check out [9] Remember (talk) 12:51, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
Does the Wikidata varient support the OMIM & GeneReviews_Mult forms? It wasn't clear to me on a first reading. I'd expect them to become more prevalent, though I've only see a few instances in use so far. RDBrown (talk) 21:03, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Request edit for multiple images

Infobox medical condition (old)/Archive 2

Several articles would benefit from multiple images in the lead infobox, such as is possible in Template:Infobox_anatomy.CFCF (talk) 08:53, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

you can insert multiple images. example article? Frietjes (talk) 23:35, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
As of now I'm using Template:Infobox disease doubleimage to be able to add multiple images, such as in Asthma, Anencephaly Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease CFCF (talk) 15:38, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
seems your edits were reverted. I will nominate that template for deletion. note the example with multiple images. if this becomes common, then clearly we could add Image2, but appears there is no consensus for it at the moment. Frietjes (talk) 19:24, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Add MalaCards to Disease Box

Hi all, I am Dr. Noa Rappaport, scientific leader of the MalaCards database of human diseases. Following a suggestion by Andrew Su (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Molecular_and_Cellular_Biology/Proposals#MalaCards_-_www.malacards.org) we were asked to write a bot that updates the disease box external references within disease entries in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ProteinBoxBot/Phase_3#Disease. We found it to be a non trivial task. Does anyone know of any such bot that exists or can help us write it ? Thanks. Noa.rappaport (talk) 10:38, 28 November 2013 (UTC)Noa Rappaport

Has consensus been developed for this anywhere? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 11:07, 28 November 2013 (UTC)


Edit request

There is a pending TfD merge proposal involving this template @ Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2015 February 25#Template:Infobox medical condition. Will someone with the template editor bit please add the required TfD notice template? Thanks. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 13:18, 26 February 2015 (UTC) Nominator withdrew TfD discussion. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:47, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

DSM IV TR section?

OK, is it worth adding a DSM IV TR field to the template? If so, how do I do it? Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:14, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

As discussed at Template_talk:Infobox_Disease#DSM_and_ICD9, I'm of the opinion that we should keep that information with the ICD9/ICD9CM, and in the few cases where there are differences, we can notate that directly in the box. --Arcadian (talk) 14:32, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
Yes for adding DSM codes. DSM-IV-TR codes match ICD-9 codes (see DSM-IV-TR), than maybe we could change the name to e.g. ICD-9 (DSM-IV-TR): 296 (296)? Or just add corrections if the code is different? Or in different way mention the differences between those two. (es_uomikim (talk) 14:32, 26 January 2010 (UTC))
I don't think it would be a good idea to change the name of ICD-9 in the infobox to include DSM-IV-TR. DSM covers only a small subset of the many conditions, diseases and disorders that are covered in ICD-9. I agree with Arcadian's opinion above. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 07:24, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
The issue isn't ICD versus DSM. Not at all. It's about ADDING the DSM to the info box. Why do this?
  1. Omitting DSM (current version) is a serious error, for it fails to meet people's expectations. Millions of people in the USA use the DSM, and aren't likely to cease soon. That there is a close match to the ICD is not well know even among specialists. In my own graduate training in professional mental health, we glanced at the ICD, then dropped it. It is not used in our practice, our thinking, our research writing. Personally, I think this is a mistake, but that's beside the point. People reading about a mental illness category will, if American, expect to see reference to the DSM. That will not be changing anytime soon. I personally find jarring that the DSM is omitted from the Infobox Disease.
  2. The Infobox simply doesn't reflect current practice. It should reflect practice, not some ideological position.
I think the template needs to be changed, ASAP, please! (I would do it myself, if could figure out how.) We need a separate line for the DSM. TomCloyd (talk) 06:34, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
There are 2 issues that I can see with this suggestion.
  1. The classification resources linked to in this Infobox cover the full range of conditions/diseases/disorders that humans are subject to, whereas DSM-IV only covers one small part. This means that, for the majority of uses of this Infobox, the addition of a field for DSM will be superfluous.
  2. The official web-site for DSM-IV-TR does not give the content of the classification - because it is copyright and has not been released under the appropriate licence for inclusion on Wikipedia. This means that any codes put into the proposed field are a) unverifiable and b) not linkable. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 23:06, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry to be slow responding. Still learning to use "watchlist" functionality.

Your point #1 is obviously correct. Allow me to restate:

  • Both my original points stand, I think.
  • The solution is not modification of the general template, but rather "forking" (to use a term from the software development community) the template so that we have a new version, which DOES reference the DSM, to be used where appropriate (only). That way, everyone wins. One way to do this, instead of "forking", would be to include the DSM field in the template as a commented-out area, with instructions to un-comment it where appropriate. Personally, I like this option. Again, I'd do this myself, but I'd rather someone with more skill in PHP (I'm guessing) do it. I'll just supervise (!).
  • Your point #2 is true until one gets to "a)" and "b)", towit:
    • a): Verifiability is possible in the same way that the same code used in a given article is verified there: by source citation. And...
    • b): The codes are readily accessible at available online, a site which states that it provides them with the permission of the American Psychiatric Association. So, using this source, the codes are both verifiable and linkable.

Now, can someone please show me how to modify the template, or just do it and post a notice here so I can then USE it. It would be much appreciated, and it would help the readers of our articles on various mental illness diagnoses.

Tom Cloyd (talk) 14:04, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

This is a large change, and does not currently have the consensus of the community. Such a forking would probably be reverted. Can you provide an example where the DSM uses a non-ICD9 code? --Arcadian (talk) 17:25, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

FIRST, it isn't only about codes. Even if they were perfect match, most USA people who come to these articles, I would readily bet, are NOT professionals, and do NOT know about ICD, in a mental health context - not in the USA, because it's not what we use. So, offering them ICD references is meaningless and useless. It makes no sense.

SECOND, while I believe most of the codes are identical or similar - where the diagnostic categories are, the list of categories, their names, and their descriptions, are meaningfully different. USA folks - my clients - do not WANT ICD. It's not relevant.

It simple: the ICD does not serve these people, in articles on mental illness diagnostic categories. For all others, I would assume it does. WHY NOT SERVE BOTH?

This not a large change, if it involves an option which has to be turned on to be used, and is only available for new uses or for those who take the trouble to update the template in given articles. All others would simply be unaffected.

What substantive objection can there be to this improvement? Tom Cloyd (talk) 20:28, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Can we re-visit this discussion please? I don't see how it would hurt at all to have a DSM listing in the table. It would make it more complete and comprehensive. Currently the table does not reflect the current state of the US psychiatric system. Yes, I've read the discussion above, but as a 5th year doctoral student in clinical psychology, I believe its exclusion is problematic. 1000Faces (talk) 15:58, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
I do not think it is unreasonable. The issue is that I do not think we can link to it like the ICD and as such think it is probably better in that section of the article rather than in the lead. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 22:22, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Late comment WHO have permitted Wikipedia to include ICD codes etc (see release here). Because we'd (ideally) end up with all conditions described in the DSM annotated with codes from the DSM, I think the APA would have to afford wiki a similar release; as I'm not sure that fair use would apply. Little pob (talk) 17:57, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Default values with Wikidata implementation

I have created some basic code in the sandbox to pull additional values in from Wikidata. It currently does the job as expected, but there may be a bug, or possibly a feature depending on how you look at it. Using ICD-10 for example, here is the functionality:

  1. If the parameter |ICD10= exists on the article's page when calling the template, then the value specified on the article's page will be used.
  2. If there is no |ICD10= on the article's page, but there is an ICD10 value stored in Wikidata, then the Wikidata value will be used.
  3. If the parameter |ICD10= exists on the article's page, but it has no value (is blank), then nothing will show up - even if there is an ICD10 value stored in Wikidata.
  4. If there is no parameter and no Wikidata value, then nothing will display.

While setting a parameter to blank/nothing is a good way to suppress the Wikidata information (a feature), I am concerned that this might actually be more limiting. There are likely many articles that have blank values for many parameters because a default blank example was used to start the infobox, which was never populated with any values. However, the Wikidata may actually contain the data, which would be suppressed using the current code. What should the desired behavior be? Completely ignoring parameters with blank values should be possible, but requires much more extensive coding. --Scott Alter (talk) 05:00, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Preferably there would be an empty/ignore value to specifically suppress wikidata results when needed. --WS (talk) 22:43, 10 November 2014 (UTC)
How accurate are the ICD-10 codes on Wikidata? Are there nosologists or clinical coders who have checked them? Beeswaxcandle (talk) 08:20, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
Beeswaxcandle About as reliable as everything else on Wikipedia? JFW | T@lk 19:38, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
Most ICD-10's that are currently on there are probably imported from the English Wikipedia articles. --WS (talk) 21:05, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
The codes here on enWP I'm reasonably confident about as I've been checking them as I move through various articles (it's part of what I do in RL). Therefore as long a value on Wikidata doesn't override one here, then the proposed change should be OK. However, the concept of blanking the value so as to suppress the Wikidata value seems odd to me as it has the potential to lose/hide information. Beeswaxcandle (talk) 05:00, 13 November 2014 (UTC)
I think that he meant that you should be able to set |ICD10= to "empty" (and have nothing displayed) rather than if the wikitext says |ICD10= with nothing after it, then nothing gets displayed. |ICD10= is often empty because someone copied the template's entire list of parameters over, not because someone meant for it to be blank. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:20, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

This infobox is incomprehensible

I came across this infobox on the Pregnancy article. It is completely unencyclopedic. It just has a bunch of codes and links. Can't we add some explanation to this box? Bhny (talk) 15:00, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

I've moved the "Classification " subheading to below the image; that may help to alleviate the problem. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:54, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
Yes the "classification" subheading should go below the image but above the "speciality". What speciality something belongs to is a form of classification. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:05, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
I agree placing it below the image is a good idea. But why place it below speciality? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:31, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

This is an improvement, but it is still doesn't explain that these are medical classifications. I think of pregnancy as biological not medical; as human reproduction, not a disease(?!). I realize some of my issues are with the template and some with the way it is displayed in the article, but both need work. Bhny (talk) 00:58, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Bhny, how do you feel about {{chembox}}? That, too, is a list of numbers that many people don't understand. Is that also unencyclopedic? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:26, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
I assume that the chembox is only used on chemicals or molecules. The problem I'm trying to point out is that a reader may go to Pregnancy expecting information about biology or reproduction and there is an unexplained box there with a bunch of codes. There is nothing saying what this box is about (disease classifications!), not biology information but medical information. Bhny (talk) 02:18, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
Take a look at Oxygen. (The infobox is so huge it's actually a specialized copy.) Does that have the same problem as far as you're concerned?
As for your belief that Pregnancy is about "biology" rather than "medicine" (a somewhat artificial distinction, as all of medicine is about biology), that article is almost entirely about medicine. Most of the "biology" information is not human-specific and therefore belongs at Gestation or Pregnancy (mammals). WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:20, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
Oxygen is fine. Pregnancy just isn't a disease (in the common understanding of disease). I don't expect a disease box there so the codes are very confusing and the box doesn't state it is a disease infobox. (sorry to repeat myself) Bhny (talk) 04:57, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
So you don't mind the presence of incomprehensible numbers and unexplained, cryptic codes like "DE (MeV)", you mind the title of the infobox—which is in the wikitext, where no reader will ever see it? Well, whenever some WP:VOLUNTEER finds the time, {{Infobox medical condition}} will be merged and redirected here, and then you can change the wikitext at Pregnancy to say "Infobox medical condition" rather than "Infobox disease". It'll still be true that no reader will ever find out about this trivial change, but it sounds like that will solve your problem. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:40, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
The article is not obviously about a disease or a medical condition. The article begins "In human reproduction...". There is no hint on that box that this is a medical or disease infobox. It only says "Classification and external resources". If the article was about a disease (which it is not) then it would make sense that an unlabeled box was about a disease or medical condition. Bhny (talk) 06:20, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
I have now completed that merger, which was quite straightforward. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:36, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
As can be seen from the following section, the merge has been reverted. Sorry, Bhny, WhatamIdoing|, I tried... Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:07, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Bhny, help me out here. Here's a list of what you've said about {{Infobox disease}} at Pregnancy:

  • Pregnancy is not a disease.
  • The infobox does not say that pregnancy is a disease anywhere in the article.
  • The template is confusing precisely because it does not say that pregnancy is a disease.

I'm not getting very far with this. You say that it "would make sense that an unlabeled box was about a disease", even though (a) the word disease is nowhere visible to the reader and (b) the article is not about a disease.

When I see a box (any box at all) specifically in the article Pregnancy, it seems to me that it would make sense if it contained information about pregnancy. Doesn't that seem reasonable to you, too? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:03, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Adding further parameters

These parameters were recently added:

  1. Causes
  2. Affected regions
  3. Treatments
  4. Further developments
  5. Prevention

A total of two people weighted in on the discussion back in 2013 [10] This is insufficient discussion for the main template of WP:MED annd one that appears to have occured without notifying the project. I have reverted the addition to allow a proper discussion to occur.

Was previously discussed here [11] without much discussion either way. I remember greater discussion before but unable to find it.

My concern is that these cannot be dealt with in a infobox. The causes of HIV/AIDS are complicated. Yes the cause is the virus but there are also the causes of vertical transmission, unprotected sexual intercourse, the reuse of needles in the developing world, IVDU generally, etc etc. Treatment likewise for most conditions cannot be summarized as a simple list. Neither can the areas of the body affected nor prevention. We are writing an encyclopedia in prose. This appears to be an attempt to get around that and to provide a great deal of prominence by putting it in the leads of our articles. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:04, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Absolutely agree. Infoboxes lead to trouble when they try to cram over-complex material in. Johnbod (talk) 02:46, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
Agree, these should not be in the infobox. Cluttering the infoboxes with information is unproductive as it not only makes them difficult to navigate, but also gives a false sense of security that they even can cover the essentials of the topic. In addition this is very troubling for interwiki compatability during translation. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 10:40, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
Completely agree. Infoboxes are a notoriously inappropriate venue for any information that isn't clear-cut and requires nuancing. These types of information are rarely straightforward and uncontroversial (eg even diseases that are heritable may require some sort of an environmental trigger). Apart from the (often) extreme difficulty in compiling the summary information in an NPOV way, the headings would likely act as a magnet to POV pushers. So, in practice they would be a nightmare, both to compile and maintain. 86.134.203.235 (talk) 13:33, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
Agree. Oppose adding those sections for the the above reasons. BakerStMD T|C 15:42, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Consensus to merge {{Infobox medical condition}} into this template, which I carried out yesterday, was reached in Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2013 September 22#Template:Infobox medical condition (which was closed by User:Plastikspork). I have therefore redone it, having been reverted with an edit summary of "Need consensus first" (also becasue that revert broke articles using or formerly using the merged template). This does not preclude further discussion or improvements, such as changing the label from "cause" to "agent of cause" or suchlike. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:01, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Addressing the more specific issues, it would be absolutely preposterous to suggest that HIV is anything but a "key point" with regard to AIDS (or indeed, that that is "over complex"); as such, there needs to be a place to list it in the AIDS article's infobox. We have, for example, other medical conditions which are hereditary, but until this merge, no way to say that in the infobox. See also the points raised by User:Bhny in the section preceding this one. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:12, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
Did you look at the amount of support at [12]? ONE person supported a merge. It was done in some obscure location. The community of editors was not notified. That is not consensus. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:52, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
As far as cancers are concerned, which is about as far as my very limited knowledge extends, most cancers have a % of cases due to inherited genetics (sometimes other factors such as lifestyle acting with inherited genetics), but this is involved in a limited % of cases (see also 86's comments above). And there are several different gene mutations involved. It's all FAR too complex for an infobox. Personally, I'd be happy if the infobox contained a prose summary (say 30-60 words) of the main features of a disease, but realistically these are difficult to write and we don't have enough people to do a few thousand of them. Unless we can find another open source that has done this already... Standardized database fields are a lousy way to handle this. Different things are important for different diseases. Johnbod (talk) 15:52, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
So don't use it in such cases. Just like we don't use {{Infobox person}}'s |death_date= for BLPs. There are sufficient conditions which are purely and predictably inherited, not to mention other conditions (such as AIDS) whose causes are unambiguously known, that the parameter to express that is clearly justified. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:06, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
[ec] Infoboxes are for short facts, not prose. There is no deadline, and the fields will be invisible if unpopulated, so that's not an issue. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:06, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
Experience shows that if the fields exist people try to fill them. Actually most "pure" Genetic disorders are relatively uncommon (for obvious reasons in many cases), & I don't think they represent a high % of all diseases. Does anyone know an approx %? Johnbod (talk) 16:09, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
I am interested in medical articles and I am just hearing about these changes as I saw new information being posted into the HIV article. I do not yet have an opinion on this matter but I do want a chance to comment before changes are made, and would like for this discussion to go on a bit longer before changing the infobox. Also, if anyone is ever seeking opinions on medical content, it would be diligent to ping WP:MED as many people there are likely to comment. Blue Rasberry (talk) 22:53, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
Yes changes to the most important template of Wikiproject Med cannot occur without clear consensus and notification of the project. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:59, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

As a lay person, can I point out that the current template is quite useless? Beyond giving a lead image, it's not an infobox - it's an external links box. Looking at it doesn't give me any information about the desease, it just gives me a bunch of numbers that I can click on to find out information outside of Wikipedia. If it continues to exist in its current form, then it should really be moved to the external links section. I think it would make a lot of sense to add new parameters to it, perhaps more along the lines of "main causes" (which could be, say, up to the top 5 causes in complex cases), "Affected regions" (where only part of a body is affected by them), "Principal treatments" (where there are a few main ways of treating it), "carrier" (virus/bacteria name), discovery year/location, last known case/location (for rare diseases), number of people affected, main regions affected, and so on? That would then give the main information about a disease in a very concise way, without running into problems of oversimplification, which is what an infobox is meant to do. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 10:04, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Quite. I'd also suggest |etymology=, so, for example, for Raynaud's phenomenon we could include a link to Maurice Raynaud, as we in infoboxes for other subjects. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:03, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
The data in the info box does not work well as prose. The data proposed does not work well as an info box. Thus the formatting. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:31, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
I have no objections to adding these parameters, except "further developments", which I don't understand. I'm not convinced that this would cause all sorts of disaster to ensue. I suspect that people could figure it out, and I think that for infectious diseases, the "Cause" item would actually be useful. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:07, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
Mike Peel perhaps it is time to talk about moving this to the external links section. It is just a set of external links. And perhaps also it is time to have an infobox which gives layman information. Pigsonthewing Suppose that layman information were to be put into a box like this. Are we at a point where fields like the ones proposed could be stored in Wikidata, then migrated to Wikipedias through an automated process? If so, that might be a good prompt for proposing a reform and encouraging people to update the boxes. Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:07, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
@Bluerasberry: We could certainly import from Wikidata for the most part (usual practice is to allow local override where deemed necessary). I wouldn't object to keeping the current identifiers in the infobox also; a good analogy is the {{Chembox}} template used for chemicals; for example that on Oxygen has identifiers and technical info, but also includes the information that it forms a pale blue liquid, was discovered by Scheele and was named by Lavoisier. Similarly {{Drugbox}}, as used on Paracetamol, has its common trade names. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:41, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
We've had numerous discussions elsewhere about removing all of those external links from the infobox, and listing them in External links. They frequently contain outdated and inaccurate information, and should be evaluated as any other WP:EL. I agree with Blue about moving them to External links, and always have! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:22, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

No, just no. This is an extreme example of unhelpful to even misleading proliferation of infobox parameters. And there is no consensus at the year-and-a-half old Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2013 September 22#Template:Infobox medical condition, and no reason to enact changes now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:17, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

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