User talk:Davidruben/Archive 9

Drugbox automatically adding pregnancy category scheme

Hi there David. Una Smith recently posted at the Drugbox talk page suggesting that a category scheme to classify drugs by pregnancy category be created. I think it's an excellent idea, and was wondering whether you could rig the template so that articles are automatically added to cats according to the value of | pregnancy_AU =  and | pregnancy_US = , sort of like articles with no structure image are added to Category:Drug pages needing a structure drawing. Do you think it's feasible? Best, Fvasconcellos (t·c) 16:09, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Speen: to have a pneumococcal vaccination or not

I had my spleen removed at the age 14 through an accident. I am now 50 yeras old and have had 2 pneumococcal vaccinations over the past 10 years (one every five years) as my current GP advised this. However, I am fit and healthy and would like to know if there are any long term effects of (a) not having a spleen and (b) not having pneumococcal vaccinations, as opinions appear to differ amongst GPs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.145.242.168 (talk) 14:04, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Can't go giving specific medical advice here at Wikipedia. Look at Asplenia article and its links to official guidelines. As for duration of risk, a 1997 paper A study of 42 episodes of overwhelming post-splenectomy infection: Is current guidance for asplenic individuals being followed? observed "Patients of all ages were affected with OPSI occurring up to 59 years after splenectomy. A mortality rate of 45% was seen. Pneumococcal infection caused at least 37 of 42 episodes, but only 12 patients had received pneumococcal vaccine. " and "Much more needs to be done to ensure that asplenic patients are warned of the risks of infection, and given at least pneumococcal vaccine. The role of antibiotics for either continual prophylaxis or as a reserve supply for self-prescription at appropriate times also needs greater discussion."

I can only really then point you in the direction of some UK (given I'm British) Department of Health and Trust-produced infomation sheets:

• Splenectomy: Information for patients and patient card (Department of Health webpage to download factsheet)
• GUIDELINES FOR MANAGEMENT OF ASPLENIC PATIENTS (PDF - one hospital trust's guidelines)
• Are there guidelines for penicillin prophylaxis in asplenic patients? (NHS for Wales FAQ 2001 which discusses antibiotics and vaccinations)

Take care, David Ruben ^Talk 14:03, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

NHS for Wales link now broken and try Should every patient be on penicillin lifelong post-splenectomy? Which is the best antibiotic (and dose) if the patient is allergic to penicillin? instead.David Ruben ^Talk 13:52, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Ban

Hi David, Just wondering, banning users from specific articles : does that usually work well? Is it common practice to use it?

Ciao, JacobH (talk) 15:01, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

As a community project, it is for general editors to indicate when another editor is being disruptive to the collaborative effort. As such (sensible) consensus on a talk page should guide other editors, and acting against that is therefore de facto disruptive and is well covered by policies on disruption WP:Block and WP:3RR which notes even one revert may be disruptive and warrant a block. The situation here is certainly not the commonly encountered disruption - he is articulate, knowledgeable in specialised areas and able reference, wikimarkup etc. Indeed 3RR itself is not (as far as I am aware) ever directly approached now. WP:COI is really the issue here, and where edits are self-promoting or cannot be respected as having impartial NPOV, then an editor continuing to so edit is disruptive. WP:AGF of course requires there to be dialogue and where this fails to achieve a satisfactory outcome then warning of being blocked. The community instruction to desist from further article editing is what is meant by a community ban (confusingly WP:Banned links to Wikipedia:Community sanction noticeboard which has since been closed down in favour of the one area of WP:AN/I - rightly as it acted often with undue haste in blocking). So following WP:COI/N discussion and the talk page, I have merely made an assessment (as a admin) of community consensus/decision and so notified GB (wikipedia is not a democracy and GB must work within this). The view at WP:COI/N is for progressive blocks if COI not heeded.

Does it usually work - no idea, but it seems the right approach (vs. just seeming to block as a punishment - which is not permitted). Will it work here ? - no idea but it is GB last chance to stop ignoring the views of other editors and respect consensus building.

Is it common practice ? - I suspect not, and most admins at this point would conclude he is already sufficiently familiar with policies and had enough previous warnings to just step in and have blocked him for a few days. I'm trying to be nice here, but as I said really up to GB to take stock.

PS remember do not aggravate the situation here yourself, as baiting is unfair, risks subsequent action having a broader sweep and include you in collateral actions, or risk being seen as mitigation. Lets give GB some space to reflect and decide how he wishes to work within the English Wikipedia guideline & policies and with its community of editors... David Ruben ^Talk 17:18, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

This is all very well, but show me where I acted against consensus on Vereniging Basisinkomen, or anywhere else for that matter. Guido den Broeder (talk) 20:53, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not familiar either with the procedures on the English wikipedia, I'll need my space as well. Thanks for your extensive reaction, I'm more or less interested in the procedures because we've got similar problems on the Dutch wikipedia as well (in general). The discussion of blocking, progressive blocks and edit wars is a never ending story. Any alternatives, suchs as banning users from certain articles, may be worth evaluating for the Dutch wikipedia. Regards, JacobH (talk) 11:24, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

The possibility of banning users from certain articles or areas exists on nl:Wikipedia and has been applied on various occasions, sometimes as an agreement between users. Guido den Broeder (talk) 11:36, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Request for arbitration

This is to inform you that I have filed a request for arbitration on your ruling, see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration#Request_to_lift_article_ban. Guido den Broeder (talk) 16:48, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Robotje

David, could you explain to user:Robotje that the talk page of Vereniging Basisinkomen is not the place to discuss perceived events on nl:Wikipedia? Thanks, Guido den Broeder (talk) 15:19, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

 Done - talk page clearly not place to discuss an editor’s invoking of administrative action in another Wikipedia (see also WP:VPP#Interwiki allowable evidence of user behaviour - somewhat against what I expected, misdemenas elsewhere may be more freely noted where appropriate) David Ruben ^Talk 23:37, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Guido den Broeder and Dutch Wikipedians

Hi David. I see from the above, COI/N, and the arbitration page that you are now attempting to resolve the issues around Guido den Broeder. My concern here is that some editors seem to have followed him from the Dutch Wikipedia with the express intent of removing the stuff he adds here. I think they have now realised that was not the best approach, and are now trying to work within the en-wiki community instead, but could you possibly give your opinion on that? I've been trying to handle things at Talk:Melody Amber chess tournament and that seems OK now. It is difficult to balance between working with people who want to edit on areas they are most interested in and knowledgeable about, and those who might be veering towards a COI. Sometimes it is better to work with them than ban them from articles. Carcharoth (talk) 07:58, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

• Hi David, I see your post. It occurred to me there is some things you may not be aware of. Please check this user. User:LucianoHdk and contributions Special:Contributions/LucianoHdk especially this and then Vereniging Basisinkomen Afd. It appears possible to me this is a user from the Dutch Wiki come to English wiki, not in a constructive way but more to antagonise Guido. SunCreator (talk) 22:41, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

You mentioned, and then were uncertain, about the WP:VPP#Interwiki allowable evidence of user behaviour thread. I had assumed cross mention was taboo if not frowned upon, but seemingly not, however I have acted on behalf of GDB that discussion of his actions re RFARs on Dutch Wikipedia are certainly inappropriate in an article talk-space. However, LucianoHdk made one talk page comment re COI adding links to ones own material and removed that once. Single AfD pointing out that Dutch Wikipedia does not include the organisation is hardly in itself antagonistic - and whilst interesting it was a weak argument that a topic is not-notable - Dutch Wikipedia may just have a gapping hole waiting to be filled ! Of course if Dutch wikipedia had had their own AfD and decided that the group was not notable, then I think it would be quite hard to justify why a foreign (aka Englkish) wikipdia finds the topic notable when only sources are in Dutch and the organisation has failed to raise itself above the horizon for Dutch editors. Now were LucianoHdk clearly identifyable as an editor at Dutch Wikipedia who has been incivil to GDB, or previoulsy cautioned not to wikistalk there, then presence/actions here in English Wikipedia would warrent at least an AGF warning. Difficult, not least because I don't speak Dutch and can't go investigating through Dutch Wikipedia :-) Having other uninvolved editor watch over these articles should help moderate the various parties and prevent edit warring - so thank you :-) David Ruben ^Talk 23:31, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't speak Dutch either, which is saving me some time, as otherwise I might go and investigate what is going on the Dutch wiki. If this Vereniging Basisinkomen article was deleted on the Dutch wiki my initial thought would be that it was falsely deleted, i.e that the AFD was overrun with individuals intent on removing it for non valid wiki reasons. However, I guess as you said that didn't happen and I can't deeply investigate either. On the English wiki the activities of some who choose delete in the Afd look suspicious. User talk:GijsvdL(note talk page is all about GDB and his topics), User talk:Migdejong(few contributions and only one AFD the Vereniging Basisinkomen Afd plus comments on Chronic fatigue syndrome another one of GDB few topics of interest - those two topics have nothing in common except GDB), and the already cited Special:Contributions/LucianoHdk. SunCreator (talk) 00:27, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, GDB has edited Vereniging Basisinkomen today. I've unwatched the page 'cause frankly I don't care about it. I don't know what's extant or going on about potential COI issues. I still think that as treasurer, he shouldn't be editing the page. WLU (talk) 22:16, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

It's a change of 'guaranteed minimum income' to 'basic income' which is proposed on the talk page without any objections. I shall keep the page on my watchlist for a while. SunCreator (talk) 23:46, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Please note that user:Fram has removed the external link to the Vereniging Basisinkomen from both Guaranteed minimum income and Basic income, claiming that the site has no English content (which is untrue), while leaving another, fully non-English site be. Guido den Broeder (talk) 07:29, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Does NOT appear any English content on the homepage, so can understand why it's been removed. Where is the English content found on the site please? SunCreator (talk) 13:23, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Specifically, at Studie/FRISBI, the basic income simulator which is unique material and entirely in English. Guido den Broeder (talk) 19:08, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Where specifically please, with URL? All I found was this mainly in dutch. SunCreator (talk) 19:32, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Click on the download link. :-) Guido den Broeder (talk) 19:42, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but if you are expecting anyone to download anything and count that as English then you are mistaken. SunCreator (talk) 19:50, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

You've lost me here. Guido den Broeder (talk) 20:02, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

You have been saying that this has English content and therefore it's removal as not being English was incorrect but if the best you can come up with is a download and not web content then I agree with user:Fram that it's not English and should at best be said that it's an other language site or otherwise removed from the links. SunCreator (talk) 22:13, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, going with the flow: language indicated. Only listed on Basic income; external links on Guaranteed minimum income have been reduced to a single one. Guido den Broeder (talk) 00:08, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

(undent)Non-english sources are allowable. Non-english external links are not a good idea. BI and GMI should both have the BIEN websites, which is international and has English content, but a link to a site that is in dutch and only relevant to one country (and is tenuously notable and relevant anyway - the AFD outcome was no consensus, not keep) is not a good option. Fram's removal was a very good idea and the link should be removed from all pages except the VBI. WLU (talk) 15:20, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

The content of the Nieuwsbrief is often enough non-local. Guido den Broeder (talk) 19:08, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

RE: Template:Drugs for obstructive airway diseases

Hello. Could you please edit Template:Drugs for obstructive airway diseases, because I do not know which group of beta₂-adrenergic agonists which indacaterol should belong. Do you know where it should belong? :-) Carlo Banez (talk) 12:28, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

 Done Easy enough to look up at PubMed- ultra LABA David Ruben ^Talk 22:58, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

AN/I review

As the review got archived after several admins critisized your approach, I assume that the article ban is off. Guido den Broeder (talk) 07:41, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Guido den Broeder

Hello, some discussions and actions you were involved in are used as evidence in the RfC/U I started. Fram (talk) 12:56, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Robotje

David, could you take a look at this edit by user:Robotje, who seems intent on continuing to harass me? [1] Note that by removing the source, he violates my attribution rights. Guido den Broeder (talk) 15:50, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

A heads-up, GDB has put up an unblock request and seems to think that you have indicated somewhere one of his reverts was for vandalism, not over content. I don't know if you want to disabuse him of this notion or not, but you should probably know about it. WLU (talk) 10:04, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Mentoring @ Dutch Wikipedia

In respons to your question asked on Oscars talkpage, the answer is yes that Guido is being mentored on the Dutch Wikipedia. This mentoring (in Dutch) can be found here, while a summary of the decisions made by the mentor can be found here. Mentoring Guido was instated after this decision by the Dutch Arbitration Committee. Regards Silver Spoon 05:39, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I am no longer active on nl:Wikipedia. Guido den Broeder (talk) 08:25, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

double mentoring: why not

i am guido's mentor at nl.wikipedia since sep'07. he has in fact been trying his best time and again to avoid being mentored in different ways, his current attempt being a request for a permanent ban which he supposes whould cancel the mentoring. you said that mentoring on 2 projects wouldn't make sense, but i fail to see see why: would you perhaps suppose he be mentored by one person on 2 projects? since guido now states he is "no longer active on nl:Wikipedia" (see just above here) (check his contribs on nl), again: why not? good luck and all the best, oscar 08:43, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Clarification: User:Oscar believes that a 'mentor' can decide to keep that position against the wishes of the user, apparently even after an account has been closed(!), and regardless of abundant criticism from other users. Here, as well as on nl:Wikipedia, I find that unacceptable. Guido den Broeder (talk) 09:08, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the idea is that one mentors the person, not the account... Tdevries (talk) 09:54, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Policies across projects can vary, so mentoring by the same person on two wikis isn't necessarily the best idea; I think an admin mentor would be best due to the implied knowledge of policies and ability to negotiate disagreements. WLU (talk) 14:57, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

@Tdevries: I think the "mentor" is as guilty of COI as Guido. The only difference is that the person behind the account of the "mentor" may not be named. You speak Dutch, search nl:Wikipedia:Relevantie for which group of teachers at tertiary education are deemed relevant per se and find out which account added that clause (as a hint: you protected the subpage with that selfpromotion). Erik Warmelink (talk) 00:18, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry can't read Dutch at all (although can guess at a lot of the words which can be similar to English). Babel Fish (website) translation just moved over from Altavista to Yahoo and temporarily seems unable handle that page :-( David Ruben ^Talk 00:38, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

In short (and I have to be short, unless I get blocked by "accident" by oscar again, or by his friends from IRC because I violated oscars privacy), oscars profession in real life is the only teaching job which makes the holder of that job "relevant" for nl.wikipedia. Oscar added that clause, Tdevries protected the page. Oscar & friends managed to drive Guido from nl.wiki (in my opinion because anyone with a cum laude for his/her thesis is a threat to the pokemon, soccer and television crowd). That was not enough, so the mob started vandalising Melody Amber chess tournament on en.wiki, because some of the tournement books were written by Guido (and someone on wikipedia who has written books and a thesis instead of making a fancy signature is awfully threatening to their self-esteem). Well, that's not short at all. I guess I will spend less time on nl.wiki. Erik Warmelink (talk) 01:44, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Erik Warmelink seems to suggest that I protected the relevance-page on nl.wiki because of the addition of Oscar to "support" Oscar in his "self promotion". The edithistory of the page clearly shows otherwise, the only reason I protected the page was because of an ongoing editwar. No more, no less. Furthermore, I am quite surprised to find a comment on one of my actions on nl.wikipedia on the talkpage of someone else on a different project. If you (Erik) have comments about my actions as a sysop @ nl.wikipedia, please use my talkpage on that particular project and/or the administrators notice board overthere and/or the arbcom overthere in case you might find the reaction to your comment/question/request (which you never made before, anywhere, in this case!) unsatisfactionary.

The only reason for my small comment here about "the user, not the account" was that Guido seems to have the opinion that the mentorate only applies to a certain account he is using and does not apply if he uses another account. This seems a bit strange to me, it is more likely that a mentorate (and not Guido's in particular) applies to the person, whatever account he is using. And it would not be unlogical and/or impossible IMHO to extend a mentorate to other Wikimedia projects aswell. But if a mentorate is needed here,, on this project, is entirely the decission of the en.wikipedia community or "the powers that be" overhere. Tdevries (talk) 18:24, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I have only one account at each Wikipedia. Please don't try to think for me, thanks. Guido den Broeder (talk) 21:00, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Aphthous ulcers

Hi David,

I ended up re-writing the treatment section, thus, which deleted your reference to UK treatment options. I basically removed everything that didn't have a source, unfortunately that included the text you inserted here. My WP:PROVEIT approach tends to be a bit scorched earth, I think most of the information is still there in a more general form. I'll be adding a bit of text back, but after that edit I think I'm done; feel free to re-insert. I ended up with an edit conflict and over-wrote (worst collaborator ever!), I don't know if you prefer my more generic version, or your more specific one. Please feel free to expand if you'd like. WLU (talk) 17:15, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm done, earth is scorched, feel free to replace. WLU (talk) 17:22, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

No problem, good tidy up. Readded topical steroids and local anaesthetics with refs provided after the "spur" of your WP:PROVEIT :-) I've copied your posting and a fuller reply than this to Talk:Aphthous ulcer David Ruben ^Talk 03:22, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Hyperemesis gravidarum

Well, now, I'd think the need for continuing IV hydration and feeding would depend on whether you were really treating HG or bulimia, among other things. A pregnant woman who is sticking her fingers down her throat isn't exactly going to tell the world she's doing that, or necessarily even be in a mental state to understand that the vomiting is self-manufactured. See PMID 14996962 for such a case study. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:02, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the article link - interesting case and a reminder to think more widely than the initial apparently "obvious" diagnosis, especially in pregnancy. However that case report would seem to be an example of why a patient should not be sent home with a PICC line for home treatment - she would have malnourished herself/baby to a critical state if she had not remained on the ward and her bulimia observed... hopefully suitable sources can be found for those fact-tags :-)David Ruben ^Talk 18:42, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

If you go to full nutrition by PICC line, you can't really vomit up all the food and water, because it was never in your stomach to begin with. A PICC line at home therefore seems like a reasonable stopgap measure when you are worried about malnutrition, even if it does nothing to address the underlying problem. It would certainly be better than doing nothing for the patient who refuses to remain in hospital. In a few cases, it might even be "curative": Consider self-induced vomiting prompted by subjective dysphagia, and the potentially beneficial effect of eliminating the need to swallow anything at all.

But I fully agree that it would be best to discover and treat the specific problem. (Now back to the grindstone...) WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:29, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Xtremly Sorry David

I never intented so it might be done by mistake.I apologise once again But I dont know why the hell I had unknowingly removed some other's comment. With absolete regards to you. Pls forgive me --203.194.98.177 (talk) 18:51, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

User:Beetstra

David, could you pay some attention to the posts of user:Beetstra who is presently targeting me both here [2] and on meta [3], insinuating that I am the same person as some Scandinavian account? Thanks, Guido den Broeder (talk) 12:02, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm, GDB, please discuss the points/edits, and not the editor... I see though you've (subsequetly) had a perfectly sensible discussion on wikimedia and Beetstra has released some of the links (if I understand correctly).

re COI/N, comments on past links and COI reached a pause on RfC, and I agree probably same now approapriate for COI/N (unless there should be any future concerns). "If a week is a long time in politics, what is a month?" and so edits by early April now of far less importance than future contributions :-) David Ruben ^Talk 18:31, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh dear

Thanks for expanding on my brief comment here. I wasn't sure I trusted myself to say anything more involved as it would have contained an unprodcutive degree of sarcasm and incivility. But that's what being part of the "medical mafia" does to you. :) MastCell ^Talk 19:57, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

User: Daharja re sodium valproate edit

Hi David,

I'm new to this talk business so please forgive any incorrect usage of the forum.

I believe that the section "safety in pregnancy" is warranted on the sodium valproate wiki page. Wikipedia is designed to provide not just medical info, but info pertinent to all issues regarding to the subject in question - in this case, sodium valproate.

I also speak from experience that wikipedia is often one of the only places that a layperson can go to get information easily that may not come directly from the medical fraternity. Although it does contain biases and inconsistencies, it's generall a good and corerct source. I use wikipedia for a whole range of subjects, and find it is generally correct.

It could be the case that the information on the sodium valproate case could alert a woman to risks associated with being on the drug during pregnancy. The standard information given from neurologists (at least in Australia, where I hail from), is that there are no known risks associated with autism. This is the information that is given to all women contemplating pregnancy, and was the information given to me. I now have an autistic son. Had I known that risks were associated with this drug (risks that are now confirmed by the Australian Epilepsy Pregnancy Database, but still not told to women considering pregnancy and that are not listed in the inserts on the drug packaging), I would not have used epilim during pregnancy.

There is the possibility that something as simple as Wikipedia could make a difference to a woman's choice of anti-convulsant medication. A woman may trust her heurologist when he says epilim is fine, but just check the net to be sure. Providing the info that there is a class action involving the drug on the wiki page about the drug is relevant, and belongs there. It may just prevent another autism case as well.

Thus I believe that to remove the information is to remove valuable, relevant and appropriate information. I have therefore reinstated the information regarding the class action.

Regards,

Daharja

Thanks, although I disagree. I've copied your posting and added a full reply to Talk:Sodium valproate#News about action taken against this drug in UK (I try and follow WP:1RR). David Ruben ^Talk 03:04, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi David,

Thanks,

Cheers,

Daharja. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Daharja (talk • contribs) 04:05, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

More here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:18, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Whilst I would agree that the comment at Autism#Causes about affect of many (?all) teratogens having effect in 1st 12 weeks is a suitable catch-all, given that this possible cause is a tiny minority compared to the overall number of cases of autism, I am tempted to suggest some mention of a few illustrative example worst-offending as not being unfair. A big however though, teratogen is linked in that sentance and Teratogen#Teratogenic agents lists out a very large number of agents (medications and otherwise) and it would need a reliable secondary source to suggest what might be the most improtant of these (autism article would seem to suggest this not known) - so adding just valproic acid might not be best example and undue weight to so suggest. Therefore I'ld agree leave it as it now is :-) David Ruben ^Talk 14:14, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Repeat case

Could you please look at this: [4] . This user was very generous with these links before: User_talk:68.35.21.191. These links are not bad, leave them or remove? --VanBurenen (talk) 10:20, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for heads up - there is generosity of linking and then again outright persisting spamming which is disruptive to article building (on basis WP:NOT#NOTLINK for external links). Linking to homepage for a clinic is spamming. Janet Travell is mentioned in the article and citations suitably given. That some clinic (MyoRehab in link www.aims-llc.org/ claims to be a national institute, whilst in www.myorehab.net/articles/article-archive.htm states "a treatment center") mentions her as basis for their technique, does not make the home page an expansion on the topic of trigger points itself. Finally given the same IP's past repeated horrendous spamming of the link across multiple articles, addition of the same link back into this article is the action of a single-purpose or COI IP and seems grounds to revert and reblock. If the IP were to discuss their edit, rather than soley add external links to wikipedia, then a dialogue might be started. Similarly if another editor wishes to reinsert the links then review of the link under WP:EL (which I feel they fail) might be had. David Ruben ^Talk 00:35, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I've requested the urls be blocked by User talk:XLinkBot/RevertList. David Ruben ^Talk 01:06, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

And they are back again [5]. I reverted this time. --VanBurenen (talk) 17:47, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks - as sockpuppet or at least meatpuppet (which counts as same thing), I've indef blocked them too and I'll seek perminant block of web addresses as multiple new and old sockpuppet accounts being used for this.David Ruben ^Talk 01:52, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

 Done Both web links now blocked from wikipedia David Ruben ^Talk 03:40, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Anti-diabetic drug references

Hi there. Arcadian removed two references that weren't tied to the text, but they were actually there to support the article's general content (i.e. no specific statement). You're absolutely right about the section formatting—I didn't notice the nested headings. I'll go reformat them per Wikipedia:CS#Maintaining a "References" section in addition to "Notes" :) Thanks for the message, Fvasconcellos (t·c) 18:28, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Spam-blacklisting

I've moved it to MediaWiki:Spam-blacklisting fyi. cheers--Hu12 (talk) 10:35, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Image:DH thymus.jpg listed for deletion

David- I've removed the images with the watermarks. I agree they clouded the image from the view I wanted to share on Wiki. I will repost the images without the watermark, but probably not on as many pages. Sorry for the mistake. --LearnAnatomy (talk) 06:09, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Wow, many thanks for so swift and positive response, IfD proposal withdrawn :-) David Ruben ^Talk 23:15, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

User talk:Guido den Broeder

There's no reason to protect that talk page simply because he cleared all messages once. Please unprotect it. -- Ned Scott 03:36, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for request that single clearing once is insufficient reason to protect, I'm persuaded by you & your request and I shall unprotect and trust to his leaving the sanction notices for the remaining 5+ days of his block. David Ruben ^Talk 03:49, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, and I hope he uses good judgment and leaves them there as well. I'll try to keep an eye on it. -- Ned Scott 04:07, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I did not know that such a rule existed. It's not on the template; where can I find it? Guido den Broeder (talk) 23:59, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Users are of course free to archive old material from their talk pages, or remove sanction notices which nolonger apply; as you have now done :-) However, as I understand it, noticies should generally remain in place for the duration of a block. David Ruben ^Talk 01:07, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Please do not enforce on others your own made-up rules and interpretations, this is quite disruptive. Guido den Broeder (talk) 07:27, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Guido, please remain civil and assume good faith. This is not some made-up rule, but part of Wikipedia:User Page#Removal of comments, warnings, namely "Important exceptions may include declined unblock requests (while blocks are still in effect) or confirmed sockpuppetry notices. In this case it may be legitimate to keep a user from gaming the system. Such templates are intended not only to communicate with the user in question, but to display important information about blocks and sockpuppetry." (to be clear: in this case, it's about a block, there is no sockpuppetry involved). It is understandable that you were not aware of this, but you should not accuse people of making up rules when they are in fact acting according to our guidelines and common practice. You may notice that Ned Scott above agrees that the notices should stay, but that he only disagrees with the talk page protection, which shoulonly have been done after due explanation and repeated removal of the block notice and unblock requests. Fram (talk) 07:39, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I did not remove 'a declined unblock request', thanks. You also left out the key part of this guideline section: Users should note that restoring talk page warnings is not a listed exception to the three-revert rule. Guido den Broeder (talk) 08:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Guido, you did remove multiple declined unblock requests [6], after which David Ruben protected your talk page, and Ned Scott started this section. Furthermore, David restored these declined unblock requests once, so your "key part" about the three revert rule is completely irrelevant. Please stop this wikilawyering and stay with the facts. Fram (talk) 09:00, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I did not remove 'multiple declined unblock requests' either, thanks. What I removed was the block notice PLUS closed unblock requests (and not an open unblock request, what David insinuated in his revert summary), which cannot possibly lead to the 'gaming the system' that this guideline section is looking to prevent. Will you please stop these accusations? Guido den Broeder (talk) 09:18, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

You removed three declined unblock requests at once. Three = multiple... Each of these had in bold "Do not remove this unblock request while you are blocked." The edit summary by David stated "rvb - generally block/sanction notices should remain at least until they expire, afterwhich free to remove. Proceedural issue was your edit warring, ie you being disruptive, block reviewed by 3 admins". There is no insinuation there that you removed an open unblock request. What are you actually trying to achieve by denying these things? Fram (talk) 09:29, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

A template is not a guideline, see Template_talk:Unblock#Removing_a_request. Guido den Broeder (talk) 10:06, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Of course a template is not a guideline, a template is a tool. But this template (the unblock request) is the template that is specified in the Wikipedia:Appealing a block policy. Since you just can't stop wikilawyering and are wasting my time, I'll probably no longer participate in this useless discussion. I urge you to seriously reconsider your way of editing and discussing here. Fram (talk) 10:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

Thank you very much for your message. I will defi stay here and be a part of wikiproject medicine. regards Studentmed (talk) 01:21, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks man your help is greatly appreciated, i need all the help i can get.--Ccde56 (talk) 01:26, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

The LGBTProject and its relation to HIVAIDS

A debate is going here which could use input from editors from outside our project. Thankyou. The Bookkeeper (of the Occult) 12:17, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

MAlvis

David, could you have a look at the work of MAlvis (talk · contribs) and my comments on his talkpage? I feel I am about to lose my cool with this editor. Time and time again I have had to ask him not to WP:WEIGHT and WP:SOAPBOX on issues of cholesterol and atherosclerosis, but I feel the response is not quite what I was hoping for. JFW | T@lk 09:12, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm having similar issues with Pdeitiker (talk · contribs), mainly on Talk:Coeliac disease. Again, your opinion would be appreciated. JFW | T@lk 21:51, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

BL

Hi david, hope you don't mind, but I jumped in on a request you were handling, MediaWiki_talk:Spam-blacklist#aboutmyarea.co.uk.2Fkt20, and declined it. After looking through the requestors contribs, I blocked the account as an advert-only account, and felt continuing the debate for the links inclusion would be moot, as the acount could no loger reply.--Hu12 (talk) 12:42, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

No problem - had only looked at the site not the requestor - a useful learning point :-) David Ruben ^Talk 23:00, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

pmc= in cite journal

Thanks for adding that pmc= support to Template:Cite journal. I made a suggestion for further improvement in Template talk:Cite journal #Suggestion for improvement for new pmc= parameter; can you please follow up there if you have the time? Eubulides (talk) 21:26, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Entirely agree - if but can get some consensus to do this, I'll happily code :-) David Ruben ^Talk 23:31, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

My talkpage

Please assume good faith in your dealings with other editors, which you did not on User talk:Guido den Broeder. Assume that they are here to improve rather than harm Wikipedia. Do not frivolously accuse other users from making threats and insinuate bad faith and that they will act badly in the future. Guido den Broeder (talk) 07:37, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Issuing a warning is not a threat and your reciprocal tagging seems "inflexible demeanor". Yor article talk page message was, IMHO, inappropriate particularly as it was on the same article for which you had been edit warring and blocked. I therefore issued an advisory warning and what was meant as a helpful suggestion as to how best to now proceed in contributing to the article (given that you feel there are still issues to be addressed) - you are free to take or leave advice as your see fit, but per policy previously highlighted to yourself, further edit warring risks "escalating blocks, and decreasing latitude for uncooperative behavior". David Ruben ^Talk 18:03, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I have not been editwarring, thanks. Not in all my time on Wikipedia. Guido den Broeder (talk) 18:23, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

(Sigh) Untrue - as per Blocklog for "Guido den Broeder" you have edit warred twice with resulting upheld blocks:

• 2 May for 48hours, x1 unblock request declined [7]
• 30 May for 7 days, 3 requests for unblock declined and final admin stating "...your contributions to various Wikipedia articles have been of a disruptive nature... two instances of edit warring and inappropriate, non-constructive reverting ... I uphold the original block here: it is apparent that it is justified, to prevent further disruption" [8]

Hence twice edit warring blocked with 4 different other admins reviewing. David Ruben ^Talk 19:27, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Said admin had no response when I asked for evidence, thanks. It's easy to claim that someone is editwarring, etc., but claiming so does not make it true. Guido den Broeder (talk) 19:50, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Dave, you want me to remove the warning template? I think it's frivolous. WLU (talk) 20:08, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the offer & comment, but elimination of template would remove the context of the subsequent thread postings. As I think this thread is current, best leave all of it here for now - it'll get archived eventually. Feel free to comment at Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Guido den Broeder David Ruben ^Talk 20:37, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I've given up commenting there - it's a complete waste of time to talk to GDB and he's already ramping up escalating blocks. The arguments have generally settled on agreement from most editors that his edits and understanding of policies, guidelines and mores and GDB has consistently rejected any suggestions and failed to change his behaviour. He'll be blocked for his actions, not because of the RFC and I've said everything I need/want to say there already. WLU (talk) 20:58, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

And yet, you keep adding these disrespectful comments everywhere. Do you really think this is helping the situation? Guido den Broeder (talk) 21:32, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to make me eat my words You are most welcome to prove me wrong, something which would be of benefit to yourself and wikipedia. WLU (talk) 02:22, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Task force recruitment

Hi David! I know you are a member of many WikiProjects and watch all sorts of medicine articles... but thought I'd see if you were interested in one more. I've proposed a task force to provide a place to discuss the articles on methods of birth control. If you're interested, please add your name to the proposal: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Task forces#Reproductive medicine. Lyrl^Talk _C 00:56, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

 Done Thanks for "Invite" :-) David Ruben ^Talk 01:55, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

NHS edits

We've briefly conversed on email before, and sorry to poke you again, but it would be good if I could see my version of the NHS page from so long ago as soon as possible, as I'm away for a substantial period of time sporadically over the next few weeks. Thanks, RHB - Talk 22:25, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

 Done Sorry took me some time to work out what the page name had been (finally located the deletion notice posted to your talk page, since archived), from there easy to locate the old text for you - emailed, but let me know if problem of unicode vs standard email font used :-) David Ruben ^Talk 01:53, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I don't know how to do RFC, so maybe you could?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equintium I don't think that this page is necessary, but I could be wrong. Looks like the creator is creating a page for his game or summat.Amada (talk) 22:16, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Looks a suitable topic for consideration of WP:Notable, else for WP:AfD consideration. I'll explain more on your talk page :-) David Ruben ^Talk 23:04, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Venlafaxine

David

Thank you for your kind advice regarding duplicate citations. As you will, no doubt, have gathered I am new to wikipedia and am learning as I work.

Please do let me know if you see any other errors as I am always happy to accept advice.

I haven't complated my wiki user page yet but my background regarding venlafaxine can be found at http://stevewhiting.co.uk/effexorfx.aspx. I have also previously made contributions concerning venlafaxine which have been published in the electronic version of the BMJ and by Psychiatry On-line.

I hope that my contributions to the wiki venlafaxine page have created a more balanced article whilst also adding some important (but often overlooked) information.

Best wishes,

EffexorFX (talk) 11:44, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Re: Cite journal template

Hi, thanks for the tip, I was unaware :)

I went ahead and further specified the source in Ménière's_disease#History. I was the one who added that around fall 2007, and from what I've seen it hasn't been touched until today. I still have the article so I went ahead and specified pages, paragraphs, and tables :) I didn't know how to fully cite that without looking ridiculous (I didn't want to use the cite template for every single ref) so I added the article as a reference and then added the cite template as a reference. Is there a better way to do this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ijustam (talk • contribs) 03:52, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Alternative is to just state the source in a "Reference" section (ie applies to much of the article as a whole), leaving specific points to be shown under a "Notes" (or "Footnotes") section with the "<references/>" tag. What I did in teh article was use the "ref" tag's name parameter and duplicate it later when required - but no "right" way :-) David Ruben ^Talk 10:13, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

RfA Review

Hello Davidruben. I've noticed that you have a completed set of responses to the RfA Review question phase at User:Davidruben/RfA review, but they don't seem to be included on the list of responses here. If you've completed your responses, please can you head to Wikipedia:RfA Review/Question/Responses and add a link to them at the bottom of the list so that they get included in the research. We have a closing date of midnight UTC on 1st July, so please add your link before this date. Once again, thank you for taking the time to participate in the Question Phase of RfA Review.Gazimoff ^Write_Read 11:57, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks - not completed my responses yet - will do so when I get I free moment (I hope prior to closing date)David Ruben ^Talk 13:47, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Template:Citation archiving

Hi there, I noticed that when you archived Template talk:Citation back in April 08, you archived to Template talk:Cite journal/Archive 3. Perhaps I'm missing something here, but I cannot figure out why that was done. Why wasn't the archive made as a subpage of the Citation template? — Huntster (t • @ • c) 08:10, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Oops - 'cos I'm an idiot ! I wondered why there seemed overlap and 2 previous archives (1 & 2) not yet linked to. I obviously had both talk pages open and got myself confused. Easily untangled and I'll do later today when I have a free moment. Oh the shame ! - but thanks for picking up on this :-) David Ruben ^Talk 08:53, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Lol, thanks :) — Huntster (t • @ • c) 09:24, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Template help offered

Apologies if this is the wrong place to reply; any help establishing the template would be great. Perhaps Template: Artists' books would be a better simpler name? The main aim is to build a virtual library of artists books that anyone could add to, to have simple information about the size of edition, country of origin, etc. I deliberately based the design on artists' infoboxes, to keep a visual unity. For the articles so far, see Category:Artist's books and multiples. I quite like the red. Any ideas to take it forward?? User:Franciselliott

OK. Discussion started at Wikipedia talk:List of infoboxes/Proposed/Infobox Artist's Books and Multiples. David Ruben ^Talk 17:00, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Pityriasis alba

Hi David, since you made some substantial edits in Pityriasis alba, maybe even wrote the article in the first place (hard to tell because of copy/rename), I thought you would like to know that your work is prospering in other languages: de:Pityriasis alba. Good work, and greetings from Germany! --Minderbinder-de (talk) 14:20, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks for letting me know - let me know if you come up with any additional material to reciprocate back to en:W :-) David Ruben ^Talk 23:29, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, will do. The article is being looked at by our MD-team right now, there might be some new additions through the review. --Minderbinder-de (talk) 10:43, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks-Regarding Hypothyroidism, Psychological Associations

Thanks for the tip, I agree that new threads should be at the bottom and intended for mine to land there and was confused when it did not. That being said I am quite new at editing and computer speak in general, I will do my best to add correctly in the future. Cheers. Starlightning (talk) 06:35, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

easily done - you'd clicked on the first section's "edit" rather than dropping down for the last's :-) David Ruben ^Talk 12:29, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Subarachnoid hemorrhage

Hi David,

I notice on your user page that you're a general practitioner. I was wondering if you could take a look at the article subarachnoid hemorrhage, particularly at the diagnosis section, and see if you think we've missed anything that you'd find important to mention. I appreciate that it's a fairly rare condition which you may not have come across personally in clinical practice, and that the main worrying symptom is a thunderclap headache, but it'd still be great to have your input. We're currently up for FAC so the article is in very good shape, but even so, you can never look at it too many times! Hope all is well!

— CycloneNimrod ^talk?_contribs? 15:31, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

A brave GP who wouldn't be on the phone to the nearest medical registrar if someone walks into the morning surgery with a history of thunderclap headache! JFW | T@lk 17:32, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately I don't think the issue is one of making the correct diagnosis but NHS (?past) inefficiency in not having 24hr CT or neurosurgery availability. My sad experience (GP & previously as SHO) tends to be of admitting obvious cases, registrars/consultants not being overly convinced or CT scans not available 24hr and so booked for the following day, and so (IMHO predictably) patient then found moribund in hospital bed the following morning and so passing away before CT let alone emergency surgery could be performed (my tally of cases encountered in hospital/GP 4 deaths and 1 survivor - hardly encouraging for having myself made the correct diagnosis and acted promptly - I truly hope NHS now improved since my last case a few years ago) David Ruben ^Talk 00:30, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

updating cite web to reflect the optional autoformatting

Hi David

Full-date autoformatting has now optional for some time, and rules for the raw formatting in place since last year, I think—about time, too. There's a bit of a push at FAC and FLC to encourage nominators to remove it from their main texts where there's already a high density of links (i.e., to allow the high-value links to breathe). This is the reason for the discussion at cite web talk on adding a matching option to render the date according to the format chosen according to those rules for the main text. An added advantage is the reduction in blue clutter.

No one is interested in forcing people to use or not use autoformatting; it has simply become important to provide the option for editors to choose. I wonder whether we have you on-side to insert the change into the cite web code. There are appear to be no objections after a few days. I can't imagine why there would be.

Cheers, TONY (talk) 11:04, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Survey Request

Hi,
I need your help. I am working on a research project at Boston College, studying creation of medical information on Wikipedia. You are being contacted, because you have been identified as an important contributor to one or more articles.

Would you will be willing to answer a few questions about your experience? We've done considerable background research, but we would also like to gather the insight of the actual editors. Details about the project can be found at the user page of the project leader, geraldckane. Survey questions can be found at geraldckane/medsurvey. Your privacy and confidentiality will be strictly protected!

The questions should only take a few minutes. I hope you will be willing to complete the survey, as we do value your insight. Please do not hesitate to contact me or Professor Kane if you have any questions.

Thank You, Sam4bc (talk) 22:45, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

User talk:Guido Den Broeder

David, I have protected the talkpage in the wrong version. Whil you have the ability to revert it anyway, I hope you don't do it (at least until the protection expires). You may be technically correct that he shouldn't have removed the comments, but in the end, it's his talkpage, the comments are still in the history, and it all serves little or no purpose. As long as he doesn't remove unblock requests, and doesn't alter comments, I would let him act as he likes. I'll drop a note about his incivility and personal attacks though. Fram (talk) 08:04, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Did his edit summary of "defamatory comment removed"[9] constitute a legal threat directly here in en:Wikipedia though ?

I have no problems with his talk page protection nor "the wrong version" :-) Your further comment/advice above is kindly taken - such independant admin action should indeed not be interfered with by any other even obliquely involved editor (ie myself) David Ruben ^Talk 08:11, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

For someone who claims that he has no mentor at the Dutch Wikipedia, because a mentor is a legally defined term in the Netherlands (his claim, no idea if it is true); I suppose his use here of "defamatory" could be interpreted as such. However, I think it is better to just let it pass. He has in my opinion no chance of being unblocked until or unless he drops any legal threats he has made against Wikipedia arbcom members / checkusers for their actions on Wikipedia. I do love his "correct translation" of his Dutch language comment though, it is so very different from my presumably incorrect translation at AN/I ;-) Fram (talk) 08:24, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Guido den Broeder and the Harmonious Editing Club

David, I've responded over there to your comment here, but I wanted to come here and just say something to you in person. You seem to be refusing to let things go with Guido. Every time something comes up about him, you are there bringing up the past incidents and painting Guido in a bad light. I disagree with the way you have been presenting some of the incidents, and I don't think you are giving Guido a fair chance. Ever since the COI/N thread, you seem determined to try and make something stick to him. I've been consistently more lenient than you, and it is frustrating that we are both disagreeing so much over this. I've supported the NLT block, but I do hope someone (I can't always be here) gives him a fair hearing about this, especially because he is contesting the accounts of what happened. If he accepts that he made a legal threat (or it turns out there was a misunderstanding) and withdraws the legal threats, he should be allowed back, and I hope that no-one (including you) would try and use the past incidents to prevent his return. In other words, please keep the issues separate, even if you have reservations about Guido as an editor. Having said that, I want to ask you one frank question: how did you end up at the Harmonious Editing Club? As far as I can tell, you are not on the list of members. From the outside, it looks as though you followed Guido to that page and then brought up a list of (in your eyes) his past problems there. He added his name on 5th July, and you posted to the HEC talk page 5 days later. What brought that page to your attention? Was there some other reason for you to go there? My point here is that if you don't give someone a chance, they will find it hard to improve. So, if he is unblocked, are you willing to step back for a few months (not days or weeks, but months) and give him a chance? Carcharoth (talk) 21:29, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Emailed reply (happy for deletion that talk thread if you agree - I only got there from userbox on his talkpage...)David Ruben ^Talk 09:43, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Ah, right. That is logical. Sorry about that. Maybe best to leave everything in place. Sorry I didn't have time to reply to the e-mail. I've pointed Fram here as well, so do leave it here and/or archive it when ready, if possible. Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 08:03, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

A request for the arbcom to examine the Guideo den Broeder situation

G'day - I'm dropping this note in to you because earlier today I responded to a request to file a request for arbitration. My examination of events led me to believe that there may be some use in the arbcom examining this matter, and perchance resolving an issue or two, and you have been named as an 'Involved Party'. As such, your thoughts would be most welcome at the Request page.

Yours rather nervously to be wearing a clerk-ish hat for the first time,

PM - Privatemusings (talk) 23:39, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Re: Thanks

Quoted from User talk:Anomie:
“	I truely racked my brains trying to figure the non-translocating wikified dates... checked my number closing brackets etc. Then realised only difference in my coding and yours to which I was slowly edging in my own sandboxes was my careful insertion of spaces for clear coding layout - doh ! Was adding a space into the iso values :-( Teach me to space out my "}}" But thanks for your patience with my stupidity on this... now where is that bucket of sand :-) David Ruben Talk 00:10, 17 July 2008 (UTC)	”

It's small things like that that are often the hardest to find. If you have any other troubles with the template feel free to leave me a note at my talk page. Anomie⚔ 02:54, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Datestyle in cite web

David, the change to the cite web to introduce datestyle has caused some serious problems. It was my understanding that the introduction of the datestyle field would not make any change to existing cite webs in articles until they set a valid datestyle value, i.e. there was no migration required. Please temporarily revert the the change to cite web, then we can find a way to allow datestyle without affecting existing cite webs. Thanks Rjwilmsi 21:47, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Reverted back . Indeed not meant to make any change if datestyle unset. What we had not realised (despite the code examples for all to see), was that only accessdate and archivedate fields were previously wikilinked to show as default ISO else the users style. "Date" though was freetext if error (past coded that error meant pre-1970 & pre-1901) but on think this would apply for "date" of say cite_book, error trap used for pre-1901 dates to be shown as free text. ie not quite the same error trapping on a "bad" date - a full on ISO compliant date was not adversely affect. Anyway thats what bold revert discuss is about - I was bold, problem reverted, now we need to rediscuss :-) David Ruben ^Talk 22:17, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

RfA Thanks

Thank you for participating in my RfA, wich was successful with 73 support, 6 oppose, and 5 neutral. I'll try to be as clear as I can in my communication and to clear some of the admin backlog on images. If there is anything I can help you with, don't hesitate to ask me on my talk page! Cheers, --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 15:08, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:RareDiseases

Template:RareDiseases has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. Selket ^Talk 21:20, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for highlighting addressing problem. Template's URL addressing needed to reflect change by NIH to their website (this edit). Comment added to TfD. David Ruben ^Talk 22:08, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing it! I've withdrawn my TfD. There were a few others that had problems with them, so you might want to take a look at those too. I don't have enough knowledge of these external web sites to fix them myself. --Selket ^Talk 22:38, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Tonsil Stones

In the Prevention area of the Wikipedia article about Tonsil Stones, I added, (with no verification other than my own experience) that the consumption of any bread or breadlike textured foods can add to the creation of tonsil stones.

I have had this problem for years. The Ear, Eyes, Nose and Throat doctors would offer me antibiotics, and little droppers to rinse the area (for prevention?). Even my primary doctor was skeptical about the existence of tonsil stones (that was only a couple months ago).

Well, those stones get really lodged in the folds in the tonsil area. It's unpleasant, but it usually takes time and effort to pull (not rinse) those stones out.

As time passed, I finally put two and two together. Any time I ate bread or anything like it, the stones would appear. If I rigourously avoided bread, the stones do not appear. I am not allergic to wheat. I can eat pasta with no problem.

I am not the only one that has observed this. Please see check these sites: http://www.tonsilstones.net/pictures-of-tonsil-stones-a2.html and http://www.healthboards.com/boards/showthread.php?p=691712&highlight=nexium just for starters.

Goodbye2U (talk) 17:42, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Blogsite only proves perhaps you are not an isolated single case. But it will fail to establish if a notable observation (ie one relevant to large fraction of those with tonsiloliths), and those who partake in a blogsite might not be a representative sample of all people with the condition. Needs WP:reliable sources in order to verify - so any sutable paper at PubMed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez ? David Ruben ^Talk 21:37, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Xtremly Sorry David

I never intented so it might be done by mistake.I apologise once again But I dont know why the hell I had unknowingly removed some other's comment. With absolete regards to you once again . Pls forgive me --Dralansun (talk) 18:54, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Dr.David to forgive me

As a favor if u find time -could u visit Brhmoism page. It's composed by me and I confess I am not good in writing or creating an article. But the contents may attract you. If u don't have time put some generous doctors or scientists like you on my page as a favor. If they like the ideology there, pls tell them to improve/enhance the page and also give their comment on [Article for deletion]

Brhmoism philosophy is for global welfare. See if you can help the cause pls. Take you impulsive decision as you might be annoying or spoiling the moods of many of your religious friends/coliges here who are against me & my page. I will not mind if you reject me or my page but do read it once. The page had moved to debate [Articles for deletion] and taking an ugly turn over there. And I am new to such type of kid or crab fights. See it your [logic or knowledge hungry]rational doctors/scientist friends here on wiki can shape/save this page. By attempting this-You may end in doing some noble job for the human kind. while u too would agree that-since ages, For instance: my religion hates yours & your religion hates mine. Rigid Religion followers are only instrumental to spread hatred , jealousy , comparisons, competitions , conversions, blaming each others’ religion . Hope u understand my feelings. And if you have some hindi friend don't forget to tranaslate/ read the Brhmand Pujan Book on the given website in references at end. I challange if u translate and read so- U will never forget this precious gift to you from this friend,in your life time. I will remind-This is a forbidden/contraversial book in India which carry mere 31 page. but no religion dares to touch or promote it. Reading the same will be a never forgetting experience. David I also need some of your rational friend who know hindi well and could help translate news/reviews on *Brhmaand Pujan Critics’, News-Reviews. Could you request them to summit the new/reviews content on the debate/deletion page where argument is on. U see No Indian are helping me out on as they are very possesive/protective to their religion.They all are working on wikipedia on different subject of hindu mythology.And I am finding difficult to convince them that Brhmoism is not against any religion. Regards --Dralansun (talk) 20:56, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

IMHO article heading for the chop - as it fails to indicate reliable independant 3rd party soureces (academic study, reliable source secondary source etc). Adding your plea at the top ahead of the deletion proposal and as a shouting (all in capitals) poor form. David Ruben ^Talk 21:55, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Template:MerckManual

A remarkable number of instances of the {{MerckManual}} template were deleted recently as "dead links". Do you know whether this template could be resurrected? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:40, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

On very quick look, it seems that Merc has changed some of its pages, eg Atelectasis had 6-71a. at Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy Professional Edition. But a search at Merck here shows no Professional section 6-71a, but there is a 6-65e. at Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy Professional Edition which still works with teh template. As the site states on trying the old page "You have requested a resource that is being modified or has been removed".

The template therefore is fine, but some online pages have indeed changed. David Ruben ^Talk 19:08, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Inflammatory diseases of unknown etiology (2nd nomination)

An article that you have been involved in editing, Inflammatory diseases of unknown etiology, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Inflammatory diseases of unknown etiology (2nd nomination). Thank you. Do you want to opt out of receiving this notice? I'm leaving you this note because you did so much work early in the article's history. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:29, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Medicine Featured Topic Task Force proposal

Hey Davidruben, I've just set up a proposal for a new task force in the WikiProject Medicine called FTTF, or the Featured Topic Task Force. We aim to create a featured topic for medicine, most likely to do with an infectious disease of some form (the proposals so far include polio and bacterial infections in general) and become the first medical featured topic. The proposal can be found here and further discussion can be found at the bottom of the WikiProject Medicine talk page. I've very much appreciate your comments and possibly support of such a proposal, if you'd be willing to take part! —Cyclonenim^T@lk? 13:32, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Eczema Cure

Hi Dave, I to became a sufferer of Eczema 4 years ago. It took a while to diagnose and the doctors had a field day with me. A heap of perscriptions that didn't work. Because I didn't know anything about it I learn't for my self. I was getting good results from magnify glass on a sunny day couple of minutes 2 pair of sunglasses. But I always felt as though my skin was excreting somthing. I began to suspect the excretion was somthing from within. I met a guy who put me on a path where I found it. Ascaris is the common allergen. It is a parasite that lives in your lungs, intestine and can travel to the brain. It molts its skin this is the allergen. I have helped several of my friends and people that I meet at work that have obvious Psorisis on their face. It's a free cure cost you nothing and works. Try a parasite programe weather from the pharmasist or herbalist you will get immediate results, remember it's in your lungs as well so very hard to kill. The Ascaris parasite is probably not the only allergen in you but it is the one that tips you over the edge. My wife is obviously infected but she doesn't react the same way I do, her body and imune system is healthier and can filter the allergen. Look up Ascaris on wikipedia it even states that it's skin is an allergen that may cause : eczema, psorisis, hay fever, asthma, etc. Like I said you will get direct benifets from this. I hope this benefits you and many others as it has been a big relief to me.RaefRaefon72 (talk) 22:03, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reliable sources (medicine-related articles)

Hi David. You may already be on top of this, but the new Wikipedia:Reliable sources (medicine-related articles) needs to be added to the main Wikipedia:Reliable sources page. Maybe the whole LEAD can be used. Thanks for your efforts in this whole matter. -- Fyslee / talk 00:03, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, no not sure I am on top of this one :-) I've been looking at WP:RS for a little time wondering how best to do that - opted for these 2 edits - not sure well integrated vs your suggestion of using the lead. Feel free to rephrase :-) David Ruben ^Talk 00:48, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Guido - up to his old tricks again?

Can you have a look at [10]? It looks like guido is up to his old tricks. I made a good faith edit, nothing major - just adding an English version of a reference that previously was in Belgian (added originally by Guido, I think), and then added a comment about why the study disagreed with previous studies. As you can see from the talk page, Guido accused me of using my own "(faulty) guesswork and should not be in the article". This of course it untrue - the comment I added was taken from the main CFS article (although I think might have been since removed), and I'm pretty sure I've seen it in a review on the subject. Anyway, I would have been happy to look for a reference for the comment, but rather than asking for the reference, instead Guido just insulted me.

Also if you look at the ME/CFS_therapies article you'll see he just made a whole load a changes which I can't really figure out at the moment - it looks like he moved a few things around and it has confused wikipedia's 'diff' so I can't make head nor tail of what he's actually done.

Anyway, I'm not going to be around for a day or two so I'm just going to leave things as they are for now. I just wanted to let you know in case you want to take a look at this. --Sciencewatcher (talk) 02:34, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Promoting MEDRS to guidelines question

David, You promoted MEDRS into guidelines. However, the significant minority of editors (3 vs 14) believed that it was not ready, and the consensus with those editors (me including) has not been reached. The guideline is extremely raw and even (until most recently) contained grammar errors. I wonder if you can support what you did with some precedents. Sincerely,Paul Gene (talk) 09:55, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Let me get this straight. 3 editors believed the proposal wasn't ready and 14 believed it was? How is that not consensus to promote it to guideline? —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 22:50, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Paul - that was not a vote, indeed Wikipedia:Not#Wikipedia is not a democracy. And as the essay Wikipedia:How to contribute to Wikipedia guidance notes: "Votes are rarely appropriate for policy debates, and almost never for guidelines. A vote can never create consensus, instead it may or may not indicate existing consensus".

That said, admins weigh up proposals on the strength of the points raised, and frankly 2 of the opposing views were I thought weak and well argued against (first re primary in favour of secondary which is against main WP:RS guideline, second over what is meant by "third party sources" again covered by WP:RS and is included in the WP:MEDRS). I thought Una Smith's 3rd oppose posting was the best presented issue: re quality of what can be a "mediocre review articles", but against good counterpoints of using judgement and considering whether a review article fits into a consensus of published material allows determination of NPOV and WP:Undue for any radically different views from the mainstream. So just as AfD or AN/I (by admins) or RfA (by sysops) and other straw polls are decided finally by one person who weighs up the issues, but are not beholden to precise vote percentages, so I acted in this example.

Of course as WP:Consensus advises: "Consensus develops from agreement of the parties involved. This can be reached through discussion, action (editing), or more often, a combination of the two" - so my actioning that IMHO the merits of promoting MEDRS from proposal to guideline seemed appropriate, does not of course preclude further discussion and improvements -indeed the more robust MEDRS can become, the more useful it will be as a basis of considering specific sources in specific articles. Finally consensus can change but this is meant to be a guideline, not a fixed policy, that is meant to offer helpful guidence of general approaches and with some examples to help out. It has had (IMHO) enough work over a long enough time and with widely posted proposal-to-guideline headsup that a guideline I decided, but guidence can and should always be improved upon and that is what is currently happening in the talk page threads - so please continue :-) David Ruben ^Talk 04:08, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

David, thank you for explaining the reasons why you did it. I happen to disagree with you, as the MEDRS actually gives a biased reflection of the WP:RS policy. MEDRS is all about "secondary sources are bad" and very little about "evaluate all sources and use editorial judgment". Since Wikipedia is not a democracy, that was not a vote, and the consensus was not achieved, your action may appear to be against the spirit of the WP and its policies. There are thousands of administrators on WP, and what if they start promoting raw essays to guidelines at their discretion? What could help to allay my doubts is if you could give me a couple precedents for the similar actions taken by other administrators in such cases. Thank you, Paul Gene (talk) 02:48, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

A minor point re "reflection of the WP:RS policy", but WP:RS's banner indicates it is just a "content guideline", but I get what you mean, so on with my attempt at reassuring... :-) David Ruben ^Talk 22:14, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate where your uncertainty on this is coming from, and I agree it is hard to find much information about confirming guidelines (plenty on how to propose a guideline but not on the completion of process - but then guidelines don't come along that often compared to say AfD).

WP:RS was first drafted 28 February 2005 and stated as guideline 12 May 2005 some 2.5 months later. By comparison WP:MEDRS was drafted 10 November 2006 and I promoted it 2 September 2008 after some 22 months and with a RfC that had run for an extensive time from 10 August 2008. So not really a question of promoting a new unworked-upon essay (which clearly would be undesirable). Of course length of discussion does not directly equate to worthiness, but WP:MEDRS had had a longer development time than its parent.

As for precedents for making a decision and what is needed by way of straw poling numbers: in another area an editor pointed me a few days ago to a NYT article The Charms of Wikipedia and I noticed a paragraph from it:

"In October 2001, the first Wikipedian rule appeared. It was:

Ignore all rules: If rules make you nervous and depressed, and not desirous of participating in the wiki, then ignore them entirely and go about your business.

The "ignore all rules" rule was written by co-founder Larry Sanger and signed by co-founder Jimbo Wales, along with WojPob, AyeSpy, OprgaG, Invictus, Koyaanis Qatsi, Pinkunicorn, sjc, mike dill, Taw, GWO, and Enchanter. There were two dissenters listed, tbc and AxelBoldt."

So an official policy of WP:IAR had 13 fors and 2 against (86.7%), by comparison WP:MEDRS, a mere guideline to try to give further help and guidance, had 16 supports and 3 opposes (84.2%), so consensus is not an absolute 100% approval rating but for a clear majority and with the arguments weighed up.

If one looks at WP:MOS which was started 6 October 2001, it illustrates that terminology has changed, so difficult to find precise precedents - initially described as a "style guide" and gained the "guideline" banner 26 June 2005 with no debate at all in archived talk.

Anyway hope that helps allay your doubts :-) - I don't think I did anything wildly extravagant, and as previously stated, WP:MEDRS continues to be discussed, per these changes so far since made a guideline (compare to changes WP:RS has undergone since it was made a guideline), so all the guidelines evolve over time and become less raw as they bed down with debate, queries and particlar events highlighting the need to clarrify, modify, and be more or less flexible. David Ruben ^Talk 22:08, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

That last point is important. Adding WP:MEDRS to the list of guidelines guarantees more critical eyes will look and comment. It moves from being somewhat under control of one project, to being edited by the wider community. Colin°^Talk 22:49, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

• It is telling that to find the precedent you had to go back to 2001 and cite a decision involving Jimbo Wales, which automatically puts it into a separate category. Therefore, I contend that your decision to promote MEDRS to a guideline over the objections of a significant minority of editors was extraordinary. It sets a precedent of its own. Maybe I should ask for the community help at Rfc. Unlike the simple matters of AfD, guidelines are something that have lasting impact and need discussion and polishing. Paul Gene (talk) 11:06, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

  Please AGF :-) As I stated "in another area an editor pointed me a few days ago to a NYT article The Charms of Wikipedia and I noticed a paragraph from it:" (see here from 6 September) and this was just very fortuituous, so no implication that "telling that to find the precedent you had to go back" - two day memory recall was hardly a lot of effort, and it was nice to quote someone else's observation. The reviews I did undertake was for WP:RS and WP:MOS which seemed the most obviously similar guidelines to compare against.

  For examples given, and for common use of assessing straw poll discussions (RfA, RfC and -fD's) percentage of 84.2% by straw poll is sufficient to carry forward as a majority of consensus building (the minority being sufficiently small as not to carry a veto), but again WP is not a democracy and it is for a closing admin to make a value judgement on the issues. To accuse me of being "extraordinary" and "sets a precedent of its own" is frankly sour-grapes and a failure to accept the overwhelming majority. You are also being disingenuous to the other editors who previously and currently continue to work on "discussion and polishing" - guidelines are not set up only when finalised and in need of no further work, quite the opposite, they are promoted when general agreement and then significantly continue to evolve (per examples given that you ignore). Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines policy, Wikipedia:Polling is not a substitute for discussion#Policy and guidelines guideline and Wikipedia:How to contribute to Wikipedia guidance essay are useful background reading - later though heavily critisied in its own talk page :-) Note Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#WikiProjects notes re Wikiproject recommendations that "some are eventually considered guidelines after sufficient consensus has been reached", and "sufficient consensus" indicates that consensus is not necessarily 100%, but a value judgement on the level of consensus.

  If you really have a problem with specific parts of the current guideline, I suggest you discuss on its talk page, but I would strongly warn against Forum shopping, for the proposal to promote had been previously widely posted ({{proposed}} tag adds to category of proposals), and had been listed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine#MEDRS - guideline proposal (with WP:MED having some 200 participants) and at Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources#WP:MEDRS. David Ruben ^Talk 00:58, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

• I notice that you have now protected this page. This seems improper in that you were previously involved and are using your admin tools in support of your views. Please revert. Colonel Warden (talk) 05:53, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
  • David, you already made one unwise and rash decision by promoting WP:MEDRS page. You continue to show poor judgment by reverting me and by protecting the page in dispute. Please remember that under WP:ADMIN administrators showing repeated/consistent poor judgment and misuse of tools (deletion, protection, blocking in clearly improper circumstances) may be sanctioned or have their privileges removed. Please revert. Paul Gene (talk) 10:43, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Questions regarding postings

Hello David, Thanks for your reply to our postings on Wikipedia. At Wellsphere, we believe strongly in Wikipedia's mission and the incredible service that you provide in maintaining the credibility of Wikipedia content. In fact, we share the goal of providing credible, objective information to those who are looking for answers on a wide variety of topics. If you take a look at our website (www.wellsphere.com), you will see that there are no advertisements. The focus of Wellsphere is to connect people with the knowledge they need. We would like to support Wikipedia in any way that we can, and would like to ask your help and guidance so that we may support Wikipedia in the manner that you tell us is the best for Wikipedia's users.

Wellsphere has assembled an unprecedented network of 1200 of the best health writers on the Internet. We have hundreds of thousands of articles from these writers who write about both common and obscure health and healthy living topics. Our health bloggers network consists of dedicated medical and healthy living experts from Stanford, Harvard, Yale and other large organizations writing for us. These writers are not paid and are purely voluntary - similar to Wikipedia's model. All our writers are carefully selected by us and individually approved by Dr. Geoffrey Rutledge MD, PhD, who was formerly on faculty at Stanford and Harvard medical schools. For example, we have a preeminent neurosurgeon, a Medical Director of Neurosurgery at a prestigious institution, who writes articles for us on Chiari malformation.

An example is this article about how another brain condition, Arachnoid Cysts, can masquerade as Chiari malformation:

http://www.wellsphere.com/chiari-malformation-article/arachnoid-cysts-chiari/21361

Here are a few more examples of the kind of articles that would support Wikipedia articles:

Prostate cancer screening: http://www.wellsphere.com/general-medicine-article/prostate-cancer-screening/30583

ADHD treatment: http://www.wellsphere.com/add-adhd-article/adhd-alternative-treatment:-lens-neurofeedback/258305

Current thinking on psychiatric therapy: http://www.wellsphere.com/mental-health-article/psychiatric-axioms-revisited/267778

Because we have so many such valuable articles on health and healthy living topics, we thought we might be able to support Wikipedia users who are looking for information on topics related to health.

If you could suggest some possible ways to post information which you would find beneficial to Wikipedia, we would be happy to oblige. Would you like to see us posting links to articles such as these in the appropriate external links section, or should we instead consider reposting selected articles on the relevant topics? Feel free to suggest other options for how we might help. I look forward to hearing from you soon, Thanks!Melsit (talk) 01:28, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi, thanks. I'll have a look over the above offered links over the next few days and get back to you :-) David Ruben ^Talk 02:21, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

After reviewing the links offered - no thanks (but do please suggest better pages to look at).

• Your site needs revising as quite ridiculously slow to load pages from your site.
• Chiari malformation link given does no such thing as link to a webpage on Arachnoid Cysts masquerading, but links to an editor's profile. The topic itself is a series of uncoordinated pages that fails to site sources.
• Prostate screening, in what way is an "Internal Medicine" a suitable best choice expert for this, vs the obvious field of Urology (or perhaps Public Health). That said, the comments on screening not being proven to be helpful I would agree with, but really this adds little to the topic as no specific data is given on prevalence, incidence, sensitivity & specificity of the tests - it gives a leadin opening but fails to give details.
• "ADHD Alternative Treatment: LENS Neurofeedback" page is just the worst of a single individual reporting that someone attended a charasmatic speaker promoting a treatment; there is no evidence or citation given as to effectiveness and as a pience of medical writing is poor (full of WP:Peacocking)
• Of the links provided as (presumably) examples of the best your site has, they are insubstantial, superficial and lacking in any breadth or depth. As for your assertion "best health writers on the Internet", rather needs an independant source for that ! I rather think Wikipedia's Chiari malformation is a better written article than the related page topics that I found, and even wikipedia's article is flagged in several ways as needing improvement and is rated as just a "Start-Class on the quality assessment scale"

In conclusion, I do not see your website as adding a greater level of depth to articles to warrent being used as a source to expand on a topics beyond what would be appropriate for wikipedia's own articles (i.e. within the scope of the WP:External links guideline). Whilst the lack of sources & references does not, IMHO, make them in general suitable as a good secondary source to directly quote/cite from.

Medpedia currently seems a more promising venture for external linking to more technical and detailed pages, but we will need to await its lauch to see how it actualy worksout. David Ruben ^Talk 00:48, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Travelers' Diarrhea

Sorry I offended you. Both terms are acceptable.

CDC Web site search for "traveler's diarrhea:" 150 results.

Same site, search for "travelers' diarrhea:" 2,110 results.

Calamitybrook (talk) 08:09, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Merge-Wilderness diarrhea into Traveler's diarrhea

Hi David, After the merge, can an ordinary editor access previous versions of the Wilderness diarrhea article and talk page to get information? Thanks. --Bob K31416 (talk) 12:16, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

yes - the WD article itself would become a redirect with #REDIRECT [[Traveler's diarrhea]], but look at its history and all past versions will remain. To access the markup for a version, just click as if to edit it (then copy & paste the wanted items) but of course not save back that version :-) David Ruben ^Talk 23:52, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

David, Thanks for your response. I wasn't able to follow what you suggested. Didn't quite understand it. In this example of a merge could you explain how to get to versions of "Home blood pressure monitoring" and its talk page that existed before the merge? --Bob K31416 (talk) 07:01, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

If you (try to) goto Home blood pressure monitoring you get redirected to Home blood pressure monitoring#Home monitoring

The trick is to carefully look at the top of what is shown, and under the page heading is shown "(Redirected from Home blood pressure monitoring)", now if you follow that link you get to the "Home blood pressure monitoring" page itself, and here are the edit, discussion and history tabs.

Only time, as a normal editor, you can't locate old versions is where a page was previously deleted, but that is not what we are dealing with here as these are only edits replacing current content with a redirect instruction and so acts in all other respects like a normal page open for scrutiny - let me know if you have any further problems :-) David Ruben ^Talk 00:37, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! --Bob K31416 (talk) 02:58, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Citation Formating

Thank you for assisting my student on Osteochondritis dissecans. From my own limited experience in promoting an article to FA ... it is the citation section that breaks the spirit. I remember looking at other FA articles to determine "How to do it" and only walking away more confused. However, FoodPuma seems to be catching on fast and will definitely appreciate your input. Thanks again and feel free to join us anytime at Wikipedia:WikiProject AP Biology 2008. Cheers --JimmyButler (talk) 23:31, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you!

I can not express my gratitude in words to you for your contributions and advice! Sorry about my messy reference work - perhaps you have read and noted my limited experience! Again, I can not thank you enough for taking the time to review and edit the OCD page! I don't have time to make further edits to it until probably next weekend, but if you would be willing to monitor or guide me it would be much appreciated. Cheers! FoodPuma (talk) 07:40, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Ooh, I see my teacher noted your work as well... interesting. Again, thank you! FoodPuma (talk) 07:41, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I've posted some general pointers to your Wikiproject talk page (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject AP Biology 2008#Observations and pointers), and by way of appreciation for your nice comments back to me, I chose Osteochontritis Dessecans as my example for searching PubMed - go look at easy way to create {{cite journal}} mark-up, and with ref-tag's name parameter already filled in for you .:-) David Ruben ^Talk 00:21, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I seem to have a problem on the page I am editing. The text partly covers the "edit" button and flowchart diagram HERE. I have no idea of how to fix this and your help would be much appreciated! Thanks! FoodPuma (talk) 22:07, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps an issue of the browser you are using ? I use Internet Explorer and no overlap of "edit" button and flowchart diagram. that said, the images are a little too large and interup teh free flow of teh text, especially with Fig3 running from "Full Thickness Lesions" into "Epidemiology" section.

Some thoughts on the images though:

• I'ld make the images appear smaller on the page (the user can always click on them to view full size), perferably of teh same width as each other
• Shorten the caption descriptions - almost as long as the main article text that they as supposed to illustrate, especially in figure 1 which duplicates in text and reference-links. For Fig 3 discussion of surgical techniques probably excessive in a general encyclopaedia as WP:NOTMANUAL :-)
• Personally I'd drop the figure numbering as awkard for someone later to insert another pictire without having to manually renumber off the "Fig X" details, but it does have its uses so I've left.

The [28] reference in teh text is dangerous, should another editor add a reference elsewhere in the text, then this will need to point to a difference numbered paper. If you need to add a hidden comment to help with such unresolved editing issues, use the hidden tag of <!-- --> to add a comment. David Ruben ^Talk 01:03, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

I really can't thank you enough for all of your help! I didn't really know what to do on the unresolved editing, but I checked what your edit and it looks much better. Also, I am not to comfortable on the whole formatting of pictures, but when I get enough time I will go in and edit the descriptions (perhaps move any relevant information to the sub-sections of the article). I also thought of the "Fig. #" thing when adding those other images as it was repetitive to change Fig #'s when adding an image in before others... Again, thank you for guiding me (and using my topic as an example!). With much appreciation, FoodPuma (talk) 01:20, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Also, I changed that [28] reference. Sorry for the confusion! - it was from a list of references I have collected on a word doc. that have yet to be put into the correct citation template. FoodPuma (talk) 01:25, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Feared as much :-) I've also rejigged the image captions and image mark up (hope I didn't edit conflicted with you) David Ruben ^Talk 01:29, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

No edit conflict thank God! Another big thanks for your help on formatting... I just can't get my head around much of that code. Also opened up my IE7 to take a look at the article and it seems Wikipedia is not Firefox friendly (displays text over images and confused "edit" link locations). :-( FoodPuma (talk) 01:36, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Hello again! Perhaps you remember helping me out yesterday. Well, I've improved some on my article (better introduction, fixed that problem with surgery subsection) and have now listed it for Peer Review as I prepare to nominate it for GA status. If you wouldn't mind dropping by it's peer review page, you're input would be much appreciated! Thanks! FoodPuma (talk) 00:38, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Just wanted to update you, I have put the article I am editing (not my article - I see you 'caught' that!) up for GA nomination and just wanted to ask if you would get the ball rolling! Apparently no one seems interested in reviewing it, and if you have the free time then I would be much obliged to have you approve (or deny for that matter) it for GA quality. A thousand "thanks" would never be enough, Food_Puma 02:03, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Unblock request from ENH08US

To emailer who contacted me re looking into block of user ENH08US, I'll not reply by email if I can't verify your (blocked) account, for ENH08US (talk · contribs) does not seem to exit. David Ruben ^Talk 02:47, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

I've sent you an e-mail about this via the wiki. Would be logical that he can't contact you under his blocked username... --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 10:26, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

True would not be able to put a posting here in my talk page if blocked, but might see the message above that he emailled me giving a non-existing username. Welcome to reemail me giving their real username. But if teh username does not exist, I can hardly looking into the block history :-) David Ruben ^Talk 19:58, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Steven, if your suspicions on who that user might be are correct, then an unhappy tale of sockpuppetry, admin desysops and banning only over-turnable by Jimbo or ArbCom. David Ruben ^Talk 20:26, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

ChemSpider parameter in Drugbox

Hi David. Could you add a | ChemSpider = parameter in {{Drugbox}} pursuant to this question and this request? Apparently, it will be added to {{Chembox new}} as well. Best, Fvasconcellos (t·c) 15:16, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Replied over at my Talk page—best keep things in one place :) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 21:35, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

MEDRS talk page

David,

I'd be grateful if you would consider trimming your talk page comment to just the essential:

Review sought at WP:AN/I#Re MEDRS guideline and my action in edit war.

Your response to Paul's accusations, on that talk page, only invites further personal comments on that page. We need to focus editors back to discussing the text of the guideline, rather than procedural or behavioural issues that just lead to heat and no progress. Colin°^Talk 13:05, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Fair observation not to duplicate issues but only indicate review sought - so 1st paragraph trimmed out. I'll leave in the 2nd as to the 2 issues raised re my own actions on how I've acted with respect consensus interpretation and guideline promoting, and that I really am quite happy for other admin input on this :-) David Ruben ^Talk 13:23, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

WD article

Regarding your recent comment on my Talk page, I mentioned to you at one point "The Charms of Wikipedia," an interesting article in NYRB. You can find it here [[11]]

You're probably insufficiently curious enough to read it, but here are a few applicable excerpts:

..Still, a lot of good work—verifiable, informative...is being cast out of this paperless, infinitely expandable accordion folder by people who have a narrow, almost grade-schoolish notion of what sort of curiosity an online encyclopedia will be able to satisfy in the years to come.

..Andrew Lih, one of the most thoughtful observers of Wikipedia's history, told a Canadian reporter: "The preference now is for excising, deleting, restricting information rather than letting it sit there and grow."

...Howard Tayler, said: "...'purges' are being executed throughout Wikipedia by empire-building, wannabe tin-pot dictators masquerading as humble editors."

Calamitybrook (talk) 00:46, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

LOL - have a more faith in your other editors :-) I read the article with much interest (nay, enjoyment) - its well written and thoughtful in its discussion of issues I think all editors would do well to appreciate - where we individually fall on the continuum of inclusionist-deletionist is a different issue of course. Indeed I cited that article as a source in a debate about guideline development here in wikipedia just two days after you made me aware of the link ([12]) - so I'm most grateful to you for it. Of course WP:Notable and WP:NOT set out framework of what wilipedia should and should not include - my local take-away shop is important to me, but is never going to be notable in a general worldwide encyclopaedia, almost certainly not my local area newspaper and not even my telephone book (I'm quite capable walking the 100yds there). David Ruben ^Talk 01:14, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Someone forgot to inform you

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Davidruben. If I see this POS is getting traction, I'll put in my comments. What a waste of time. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 06:13, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Hey, it is certified correctly and meets the minimal requirements minimally. VERY minimally. Quite thin ground here! I'm fine with your actions. I put in 2c to that effect. --Kim Bruning (talk) 17:45, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Paul is going to withdraw that RFC, it looks like. :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 00:53, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Not sure RFC/User get "withdrawn" as such, but just reach their conclusion of usefulness to express ideas. Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment#Ending_RfCs indicates manual action to close by someone uninvolved, but I think that is mainly to remove any RfC cross-tagging (of which the page appears to not have) and generally RfC/User closes anyway if no further comments after a month.

WT:MEDRS looks to be having a very useful exchange of points and likely a few days yet to reach any overall conclusions; whether over MEDRS status, protection status (talk page best centralised location to reach agreement of those involved, else as last resort WP:RFP but that should have careful pointing to the past multiple discussion threads to help prevent another admin being accused of inpropriety), or any {{editprotected}} request to amend parts per a discussed agreement. So, as continued discussion (vs previous edit waring) continues, this should run a little longer... as I previously indicated at WP:AN/I, I'm happy for any other admin to step into mopping around the article (no issue of Wikipedia:Wheel war), but in apparent absence of this I suppose defaults to myself if any polite agreed requests made... :-) David Ruben ^Talk 19:13, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Since you're a doc

Hypertension needs help. I've been slowly working on it, probably not for a couple of weeks however. If you could drop by now and again. It's slightly less a mess than it was a few weeks ago. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 06:15, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Chemspider IDs in drugboxes

Thanks for your help with adding the ChemspiderID template, hope I didn't ruffle too many feathers by adding some before that. Cheers, Casforty (talk) 03:44, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

No worries - the examples you had set up were most helpful examples, I had only thought prudent to limit number of examples in case agreement had not been forthcoming - now (retrospectively) clear overwhelmingly supported of course, so populate the parameter freely :-) David Ruben ^Talk 19:20, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikicookie

I am awarding you this WikiCookie for your constructive edits on Wikipedia--LAAFan^sign _review 21:54, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

No, not really one contribution, but all your contributions.--LAAFan^sign _review 00:07, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks :-) David Ruben ^Talk 01:03, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

On the topic of GA nomination

Sorry about that hidden comment - I checked my sandbox and since I've deleted everything there... it seems I must have already entered in the information I was planning on using! I probably needed to summarize information and/or find references before putting it in the article. Nice catch though! :-) Food_Puma 21:58, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps, if you have any free time, could you stop by Osteochondritis dissecans and give it a quick review? Your thoughts, concerns and criticism are always welcome and appreciated! Cheers! Food_Puma 23:21, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

 Done - Thanks, I had a reread, made multiple small edits (edit summaries shoudl be self explanatory) and listed some other points on the talk page for you to mull over :-) David Ruben ^Talk 04:08, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Template:Cite news

Hi Davidruben. If you have some time, please consider fixing the Template:Cite news to address the concerns here. Thanks. -- Suntag ☼ 16:45, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

WP:MEDRS

Hello! There's currently a consensus to unprotect the page, since we have the impression that people won't edit war so much anymore. Would you care to do the honour of unprotecting the page? If you don't have time, I can ask someone else to unprotect it too. (Colin has already listed it for unprotection)

--Kim Bruning (talk) 01:57, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Tznkai beat you to it, apparently :-) (Colin had posted a request on requests for unprotection). Cheers! --Kim Bruning (talk) 02:57, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Medicine/Dermatology task force

I am looking for help improving the dermatology content on wikipedia. Would you be willing to help, or do you have any friends interested in derm that would be interested in helping? Kilbad (talk) 14:20, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your help and joining the task force. I really appreciate your willingness to help! kilbad (talk) 13:41, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I posted an update at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine/Dermatology_task_force/Categorization. kilbad (talk) 15:21, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Request for help

Hi David,

My apologizes for "vandalizing" the sites. However, I am confused as to how I vandalized the sites. Please clarify. Additionally, I would like you to consider removing the block, since I only received the warnings earlier today and still don't understand what I did wrong. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by NGianne (talk • contribs) 00:38, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi, you've obviously just created your username (above being your 1st edit) - I've just acted to block 2 anon IPs and a couple other admin actions - so could you clarify for me which article you had previously edited, and then knowing who you were I will happily comment specifically. For now, I've added a welcome message to your talk page that sets up some initial links to policies & guidelines :-) David Ruben ^Talk 01:08, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Guido den Broeder

May I ask if you would be happy for Guido den Broeder (talk · contribs)'s email ability to be restored as he has requested it? What was your reasoning for blocking e-mail in the first place? Thanks, GDonato (talk) 16:17, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I've emailled you a reply for speed - no strong views, feel free to reset if you think best :-) David Ruben ^Talk 17:50, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Hello David. Guido has just deleted some comments by User:WLU and others that formed part of the discussion as to whether he should be unblocked. Do you think it may be time to restore the deleted comments, and give him a warning? EdJohnston 19:25, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

When someone is blocked, warning them for refactoring their talk page will only escalate matters. I'd leave that part of things alone. Carcharoth (talk) 23:48, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Having sought advice on this very matter, "leave alone" was indeed the received wisdom offered by other admins. David Ruben ^Talk 00:16, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

And for what it's worth, I don't really care that much if my comments are removed. I'm mostly talking to him, I think the admins and other editors have pretty much already made up their minds. I don't think I've said anything so vital that the entire discussion will be for naught if it's removed. WLU (t) (c) ^{(rules - simple rules)} 00:56, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi David. Guido posted this. I thought I'd point it out in case you missed it. I think he is referring to the bit where I suggested you voluntarily reduce the block (not the later bit I just posted). Any "please feel free to reset" comments will be politely refused. :-) (Yes, I think you should re-enable Guido's e-mail unless he has been abusing it). As for the rotating admins in and out of a page, do you know any other admins who would be willing to take on the work you do at CFS? Carcharoth (talk) 23:48, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I see it has already been done. Not sure what @1227483433 means. I'll ask East. Carcharoth (talk) 23:50, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Indeed email rights reset - as I previously stated, I was open to another admin so doing if they thought best. As for @1227483433 - no idea - take that back, on guessing seems a Unix time of seconds from 1970, which works out to be 23/11/2008 - i.e. the 1month point from when block invoked (how convoluted was that)... David Ruben ^Talk 00:16, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

As for Guido's request, find myself getting confused:

• Firstly really not up to him to close a discussion, and if it is closed then responding would be to reopen it ?
• Somewhat (childishly) tempted to follow through on Guido's request to "do not come back" of 20:52, 25 October. But as you'll see from [13] I've not been adverse to a more positive approach over GDB's block (email issue or duration), but his talk page snipping is hardly conducive to engage or seek advocacy for him
• Which request of yours is he actually referring to: the email release (which is now done) or the block duration, I suspect the latter.

There were any number of durations that I might have selected, on basis of repeated edit warring (past blocks indeed become historical, but I do feel that an editor should learn & improve after a block, thus IMHO repeating 3RR becomes a more disruptive & less forgivable event), so options in the drop down list of block-durations were of another 1 week (but that fails to show increasing seriousness of disruption for repeat 3RR), 2 weeks or 1 month (with longer options clearly an excessive progression). Of course option exists to specify one’s own interval, but that would have needed some sort of calculation scale, for which none is provided and which seems far too arbitrary (if one blocked for 9.5 days, clearly there is no way to support such a value - e.g. why the extra half day, why not 9 or even 8 days ?), so far better stick with the drop-down list of options.

re "if you are not sure whether the length of your block was right...", I personally think the duration was right... but that is not a "hard" fixed view for as the above indicates, there is no hard and fast rules about how to increment blocks (indeed from your comments I gain impression that you at least as an admin feel that the principle of incrementing should not be routine). Therefore as a "soft" decision (unlike say whether the 3RR was disruptive and warranted a block at all), I am open to the review of other admins on the block duration - indeed I've clearly stated no need to seek my approval for a change (i.e. WP:WHEEL does not apply) and East already so acted in part. I do note that 3 other admins declined unblock requests and one other admin specifically agreed with block duration (or at least did not disagree with it). Hence there is a spectrum of admin views on the block duration which seems appropriate if admins are to have the flexibility to make decisions on a case by case basis (rather than some fixed tariff system). So do feel free to reset the block duration yourself if your think best; i.e. are you “testing the waters” of whether I think the duration should be reduced (do we see a promise of a more collaborative less confrontation pattern of future joint editing? If so then yes perhaps reduce to the next level down of 2 weeks) or are you stating a definite opinion of your own... in which case act :-)

I have already suggested to Ned Scott that he might like to continue advocating for Guido by exploring the merits of WP:1RR and perhaps you too might have a role as a sympathetic editor who Guido states on his userpage "have gained my respect". You ask re alternative admins looking over CFS page - I suspect most WP:MED participants who are both admins and interested in the topic have probably already been involved in the dispute, but I have 3 names that come to mind:

• User:Encephalon who is exceptional at talking down disputes, but has not been around for the last month
• The very experienced and sensible User:Arcadian.
• Finally your good self ? Alternatively have you considered offering yourself to informally review his further editing (I note he has previously specifically rejected formal mentoring on Dutch Wikipedia), but as an admin who has (at least in part) been more supportive of Guido in past discussions, perhaps he would be willing to accept such a role from yourself ? David Ruben ^Talk 01:16, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Your input is requested. Please see [14] and around William M. Connolley (talk) 09:44, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Be forewarned (and everyone else watching the discussion), Guido's making a point of removing others' comments (mostly mine). Naturally I see this as his way of eliminating valuable context that demonstrates the flaws in his reasoning. He certainly has a different view of things, but I would be cautious of reading his comments without more background. In particular, the idea that David is abusing his powers to win a content dispute is rather galling and it's a tribute to David's self-control that he's restraining himself. Obviously I can't muster the same self-control. WLU (t) (c) ^{(rules - simple rules)} 13:56, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

William M. Connolley thanks for edit link to your entry on Guido's talk page, but as WLU notes the postings are being heavily pruned out, including yours that might be seen as trying to redress an excess - and so no place left to respond there. As I indicate above, trying to not inflame and respond more than is necessary on his talk page, and I have been reflecting on the duration of block as per response to Carcharoth above. Again intriguing that admins have different takes on this (considering also the comments in the unblock requests), but review and resetting of block duration not "owned" by me here... just take real care (as I'm sure you would) to delve into the talk-page history to see all of the discusion threads that have been had, as the current state of his talk page is highly selective (as he seems entitled to so maintain) and there is no archiving of his talk page (again as he is entitle not to need to do). The original block durations included consideration for overal behaviour, as [[WP:Block] states "The duration of blocks should thus be related to the likelihood of a user repeating inappropriate behavior" and the subsequent further 3RR blocks rather bear this out. Further WP:Block notes "typically result in 24 hours blocks, longer for successive violations", so:

1. block 14th December was for 31hrs (OK perhaps fractionally longer than "typically" but IMHO not excessively so),
2. 2nd May 2008 for 48hrs (what other "longer for successive violations" should I have chosen after 31hrs),
3. 30 May 2008 for 1week (or would you use the drop-down's 55hrs, 72hrs and then 1 week... all the way to 1 year, 5 years and infinite ? I'm sure after 1 year everyone jumps to indefinite rather than 5years; these aren't set in stone)
4. and now for 1 month (as above I note 2 weeks might have been an alternative choice after the prior 1 week).

So fine if you would have proceeded through 3RRs differently, again I'm not ring-fencing the block duration here... and feel free to also consider volunteering yourself as the watchful eye over CFS article (GDB is perhaps more likely to accept non-WP:MED related admins who have already been involved) But if no other admin indicates that they will rise to the dispatch box in a future edit war on that article, then merely leaving a 3RR to disappear into historical time (and thus beyond remit of blocking a user for disruption) can only be an invitation for poor collaboration on that article and frighten-off/wear-down other editors of good standing, and by WP:IAR that seems manifestly not what we should be striving for. David Ruben ^Talk 21:04, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Proposal

Would you be able to look at this and comment on the proposal I've made? It is different from the block length reduction (it is a proposal to restrict Guido to the talk pages for a set of articles, but to allow him to edit other articles), so it will need your input. Carcharoth (talk) 01:35, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Interesting lateral thinking approach you are taking here, will await see how he responds to it and also whether anyone else comments which might help indicate a community view. I don't think WLU explictly mentioning additonal "civilty patrol" was terribly helpful (indeed GDB pruned that out), for the whole point of a self-imposed restriction to talk page would be to engage in civil discussion to discuss and agree (or at least agree to disagree) over issues. Within article-talk space (unlike user:talk), of course removing unwelcomed postings is not permitted and incivility risks progressive user warnings and an AN/I request for block - but none of this need be directly waved as a red-flag as will not help diffuse tensions. I suspect if he can find a more relaxed and engaging approach, then clarrification on various points might be made (eg I notice past (?current) discussion over a comparative table - not sure how well sourced that is, nor how useful, but more that it is interesting that alternative approaches to including or summarising complex details being raised).

As I'm not ring-fencing the block, any admin free to act. For myself though, his attitutude during the block somewhat instills weariness, and I'll await a short while to see if your approach matures a little - i.e. if in particular the other editors in the conflict state they are willing to give this a try (after all the 3RR disruption was against wikipedia as well as those other editors). If they were agreeable, then I think I definitely would proactively seek to unblock promptly and not await another admin coming by (else perhaps better an outside admin view who might then be prepared to watch over matters - but silence would be telling).

Hence, it would be encouraging if the other editors do respond positively in some way to your proposal, for then GDB should feel beholden to their demonstration of AGF, or at the very least embrace & utilise their invitation back as a fresh opportunity to move forward on discussing some of the difficulties with the article (in part seems because of a lack of good RS to use to answer some uncertainties - there was an interesting statement somewhere about future ICD11 classification - any sources for that ?).

For now your proposal rather does throw down the gauntlet of "can every move on from this point" and demonstrate a desire for out "super-niceness" each other (i.e. WikiLove and Staying cool when the editing gets hot) - so lets give everyone a day or so to mull over this ? (again thank you for your efforts here) David Ruben ^Talk 20:37, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. But if things drag on for more than a few days with little response from others, and Guido tidies up his talk page, and files an unblock request based on all this, it is possible that another admin will unblock based on what he has agreed to and what you've said here. I personally wouldn't leave it longer than a day, but then it is your block, not mine. If you think you can justify keeping the block in place after Guido's agreed to those conditions, and after a certain amount of input from others about this block, based on the new developments, that's your call. Sorry if that didn't make too much sense, but I'm bit rushed this evening. Carcharoth (talk) 22:50, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I've posted to Talk:CFS to see if we can have a quick gauging on this from other involved editors and hopefully assertain their state of goodwill for this offer :-) David Ruben ^Talk 02:15, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Guido lost patience and posted a further unblock request that got rejected again, and upon some further non-positive comments declared "offer is now off the table" and then blanked whole talkpage thread (including block notice & unblock-requests) with "blanking - not going to waste my time on morons anymore" - <sigh> David Ruben ^Talk 20:22, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm prepared to look past this little sideshow and return to the main discussion. See my posts here and here. I was out of the loop for a while (hadn't realised how long it had been since I made the proposal). I can understand Guido getting frustrated. If you are prepared to go back to the point before he posted the recent unblock request, can we start again from there. One point, which may make it clearer why I'm not unblocking, is that I do believe quite strongly that if an admin blocks someone, and they are available to deal with it (as you are), then that admin should take responsibility for the block themselves. I know it is easy to point to others declining the unblock requests and use that to justify not unblocking (though the early unblock requests did not have the proposal I had made on the table), but the point is to take a position yourself, not letting others make the decision for you. If, like slakr, you are not happy with unblocking, it would be better to say so yourself. At that point, I would probably, if Guido agrees to it, take the whole deal to AN or ANI, and see if there is consensus for an unblock under the conditions Guido has agreed to (I could dig through his talk page for the whole history of the situation, if you like), and whether maintaining the block is punitive, rather than preventative. One point I would like to make is that there was remarkably little response (one, in fact) to your post at the CFS talk page. So if you want community advice on what to do, you should probably go to a different venue. Alternatively, you could make a decision yourself based on what has happened so far. Carcharoth (talk) 20:54, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry "this little sideshow" is just what others seem to find in general problematic, and his surly dismissal of all other editors & admins only increases my reticence to unblock notwithstanding the very sensible case you make, and in any case his offer seems (for now) withdrawn. You have kindly led me willingly back closer to the fence, but I'm not astride it yet and for now his incivility & uncollaborative stance does not make me feel that he should be allowed to rejoin talk (per proposal) let alone article (per block) spaces given the reason for his block. In short I fear he's severely testing the AGF of being someone who can work collaboratively in difficult editing areas, indeed that edit summary possibly grounds (outside of currently being blocked) for a {{Uw-npa4}} warning (given there is no uw-agf4 level and past [15], [16], [17], [18] etc).

However if you can knock some patience into him (with a humble reverting of his own talkpage blanking) then yes perhaps take this to AN given the disappointing lack of response my heads-up got. David Ruben ^Talk 22:03, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do. Carcharoth (talk) 00:36, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Urticaria

And thank you for showing me how to tweak the infobox to show the search results page! 4Russeteer (talk) 18:57, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Crohn's disease article

Thanks for the message about blocking the vandal again. I will let you know when he/she returns as I think this one is really determined, appreciate you noticing and the quick action. I do understand that blocks go in increments so I understand what you are doing, thanks. Have a wonderful day, --CrohnieGal^Talk 15:41, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Asthma FAR

Asthma has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:49, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Random Talk Messages

Sorry if random things are getting posted on here, it seems someone used the code for leaving a message on your talk page and tried to transfer it to the wikipedia ap bio project's talk page. I will go ahead and fix it now. Cheers! Food_Puma 20:55, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks - gosh, heavy editing on your article, of both points I had left and more detailed ones of Axl. I think I'll let you continue with the "work in progress" (I've been otherwise distracted in real world over last couple weeks), and pop by in a couple days :-) David Ruben ^Talk 22:49, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Medicine Barnstar
		To DavidRuben, for outstanding commitment to medical articles. Axl ¤ [Talk] 15:28, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Guido den Broeder filing cases at WP:AN3

Hello David. I recall that you blocked Guido for one month on 23 October, and joined in his unblock discussion. Since his request to have the block lifted early was not granted, does that mean he is now under no restrictions? Since he is busy filing 3RRs against other people at WP:AN3, on Fibromyalgia and various CFS articles, the issue may need to be addressed again. If you know the answer about his restrictions, could you let me know? Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 17:55, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

<this reply written without yet having looked at AN3, as I am trying to set out an overall framework of possibilities> His block was for 3RR, not any specific community ban or action, and as such with the end of the block he is free to return to editing. 3RR is an absolute (with stated exceptions over vandalism etc) that should normally result in a block to prevent what is disruption (but reporting on actions long ago serves no purpose as the disruption is not current and blocking would not prevent edit warring as there would be no current edit warring). Where multiple people simultaneously exceed 3RR on an article, they all in fairness all should be even-handedly blocked. Past block history and general behaviour though may result in the various editors being blocked for differing durations. So if GDB is correctly reporting others as breaching 3RR then fair enough; presuming he is not simultaneously the person the editor is edit-warring against - i.e. engaing in 3RR to reverse actions of someone else who is breaching 3RR is not wise and liable to get both sides blocked (correct action is to seek discussion with editor, involve other editors, file AN3 to prevent another editor edit warring, and not being suckered in oneself). In the above of course, it must be remembered that edit warring and being disruptive does not have to wait for the 4th revert, a lesser number may result in a block (its just that 3RR breach is so flagrant edit warring as to be a ring-fence). Finally if an editor sets up an AN3 that is not true (3RR not been breached) then that would be at best unhelpful/misguided if the editor was unfamiliar with polices/guidelines, but may be seen as disruptive if an experienced editor - setting up multiple AN3 as you state he has been either implies multiple editors doing wrong or of him being disruptive to wikipedia by wikilaywering others from getting on and being productive...

So time to have a look at AN3 to see what concerns you, but if a range of other admins upholding GDB's alerts and blocking editors, then his notifying AN3 de facto has justification. David Ruben ^Talk 23:30, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Ok so posted 23:42, 24 November 2008 Orangemarlin reported by Guido den Broeder (Result: No violation) and then 10:39, 25 November 2008 RetroS1mone reported by Guido den Broeder (Result: no vio). Subsequently AN/I raised about this [19] resulting in GDB being warned [20]- so issue now closed. David Ruben ^Talk 23:53, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Looking to get involved with new "policy"

I am not sure if there already exists guidelines concerning article names in the field of medicine that utilize parentheticals, like Patch_(dermatology) for example, but, if not, would love to get involved creating some guidelines or policy regarding this naming convention. For example, when, if ever, should an article be entitled Something_(medicine) versus Something_(subspecialty)?

However, I am not sure how to go about creating something like this; therefore, wanted to know if you would be interested in helping me? kilbad (talk) 19:34, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi, been recent discussions on this and the guideline already exists - see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (medicine-related articles)#Titles requiring disambiguation - and preference is for "patch (medicine)"

Unless that is there becomes a conflict of articles (- ence if ever someone feels that repairing arterial wounds needs an arterial patch then perhaps "Patch (vascular)" but far more likely to call that article "arterial patch" - and the main disambiguation page of "patch" can sort out the differing meanings.

See also current Wikipedia talk:MED#Basic topic which obliquely covers this and more importantly directly discussed a month ago by WT:MED, see archive Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Archive 9#Naming of articles requiring disambiguation. David Ruben ^Talk 01:32, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

License tagging for Image:Cycloxygenase.png

Thanks for uploading Image:Cycloxygenase.png. You don't seem to have indicated the license status of the image. Wikipedia uses a set of image copyright tags to indicate this information; to add a tag to the image, select the appropriate tag from this list, click on this link, then click "Edit this page" and add the tag to the image's description. If there doesn't seem to be a suitable tag, the image is probably not appropriate for use on Wikipedia.

For help in choosing the correct tag, or for any other questions, leave a message on Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. Thank you for your cooperation. --ImageTaggingBot (talk) 22:46, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

 DoneDavid Ruben ^Talk 04:47, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Dermatology references

Just looking to get some feedback/thoughts. While working on dermatology content on wikipedia, I have become a bit frustrated with the constant addition of facts (some good, some misinformation) all without citations. I have tried to encourage editors to include citations, but there is so much content being added without any citations. What are your thoughts about this, and is there any way to encourage/motivate people to properly reference their material? I have even created a link on the WP:DERM main page to a subpage regarding our fifth goal: Ensure dermatologic content is thoroughly and properly referenced, but I don't think most people are seeing that. What do you think of that page? What else can I add to it? kilbad (talk) 18:59, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

As strongly, direct and succint as it can be with pinters to right guidelines. Often could be source from the eMedicine & MedlinePlus links of the {{Infobox Disease}}, but I agree general some in-line refs should be given.

I think with dermatological problems being readily accessible (ie patients can self medicate topical OTC products, unlike much of internal medicine which requires oral and thus prescription-restricted medication), these in particular a target for people adding unsourced home remedies. Also though perhaps a more practical topic (i.e. difficult to find a recent review restating best policy of assessing and managing conditions, outside of specialist journals) with less guidelines and meta-analysis reviews (or at least not a "sexy" field gaining active delevopment and research publication), and small scale studies with a few patients just not as good to make conclusions to cite with (i.e. issue of primary research sources vs secondary reviews/metanalysis/overview that should be prefered under WP:MEDRS). Final point, I think WP:MED has got more hospital internal medicine doctors than dermatologists/general practitioners who are available to focus on these groups of articles ? David Ruben ^Talk 04:59, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Advice

Hi David. Would you be able to advise on the following? I recently saw this and followed up with this, but no-one seemed to take any notice (it was archived by the bot a day later without comment). I also saw that Guido has started editing again after what I had assumed was a departure essay. Given that I'm currently a candidate in an election and that Guido has voted there and removed me from his "respected users" list, I don't feel I can be seen to be being impartial here, especially given my concerns expressed in the ANI post. I know you've voted as well, and I know this won't allay the concerns you have about me, but you are one of the people that knows most of the background to this, which is why I'm asking whether you would be willing to deal with this if you think Guido's user page essay and his ongoing editing is a problem. I think the covert experimenting (only now revealed) is a problem (see here and here), but maybe I'm not being objective about all this? Any advice would be appreciated. Carcharoth (talk) 23:20, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi - I had seen his talk page insult, for insult is what his "experimentation essay" is. I had not seen the AN/I discussion that seems indeed prematurely archived off without firm community decision, I had until then rather assumed the lack of any posts to his talk page was evidence of people cold-shouldering him and ignoring the drivel of that essay.

The talk page essay states "We were all furthermore asked to test how a range of policies were functioning in practice, without (purposely) breaking them". Yet his behaviour can only therefore be seen as deliberately provocative with the COI & RfC discussions about his approach, his accusations of vandalism for anyone who tried to preserve warning messages on his talk page, and not forgetting his multiple blocks. If not for this "experiment", he would be seen just as a difficult editor who seems heading for progressive blocks for failing to improve on collaborative behaviour... but if truly savant & cognisant of his editing behaviour, then he must be seen as a deliberate testing of breaching civil & collaborative working (ie WP:POINT). Situation would be different if he had openly initially declared the activity (much as various school projects declare themselves with pupils working upon an article each), but as not declared then what is to prove that any further (even minor) disagreement with another editor is not a deliberate testing in stage 2 of their study ? Any AGF been proven otherwise by repeated blocks for disruptive editing (for supposedly self-aware in the study of editing behaviours). Final possibility is that he is just a lousy researcher who broke his own research protocol; for the impartial observer has directly interfered with the subject.

Having read the views at AN/I, I think there would be real problems with any future minor content disagreement he might have on CFS topics, if not the wider wikipedia that he might extend-out his study as an agent provocateur. If AN/I's can't stay open long enough (without getting archived if not a snap decision made), then time for a second RfC with a new AN/I heads up. Purpose to gain a community consensus over options of topic bans or permanent blocks, 1RR imposition (perhaps even talk page single daily posting to prevent tenaciousness) etc.

PS your previous efforts on his penultimate block had superficially looked if they might get somewhere, until GDB not unsurprisingly shot it down with insults. I don't in anyway hold his now declared experiment against you - even that caught me off guard :-) 00:27, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

However according to instructions at WP:RfC "An RfC cannot impose involuntary sanctions on a user, such as blocking or a topic ban; it is a tool for developing voluntary agreements and collecting information" and as he has never previously agreed to any suggestions of others (either here or at Dutch wikipedia imposing a mentor), a RfC clearly not then the due process. Shame really, only option would therefore be a single (having commented himself in that AN/I thread, he will be well aware of the views already raised) {{uw-test4im}} or {{Uw-npa4im}} warning for any further disruption (citing both the somewhat wooley consensus of that AN/I thread & his own social experiment essay), followed if required by an admin block (which IMHO should be progressive on the 3m block and without rights to edit his own talk page, after perhaps max of 3 unblock requests, to prevent further "social experiment" wasting of everyone's time).David Ruben ^Talk 00:46, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, I think another AN or ANI thread might help, but not from me and not yet (see comment below before edit conflict). Carcharoth (talk) 00:51, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Thanks. That helps to get things clear in my mind. For obvious reasons I'll hold off until next week. A whole lot of things seem to be going on my "next week" list... Could you keep an eye on things until then? Carcharoth (talk) 00:51, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

snap - edit conflict:-) I was going to post: Unrelated to the topic matter, should such an AN/I thread be archived if a new post had been made just the day before ? Should such a thread be "unarchived" and moved back to AN/I page itself? I can't begin to get my head around how difficult that will make the ANI and ANI/arechive page histories later appear :-) ...but your suggestion of setting up a new AN/ANI seems the less "messy" in such a regards.David Ruben ^Talk 00:58, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

The question might be moot as his activities are now significantly reduced and have yet to kick off any edit wars. I was of the opinion that his diagnosis and motivation for his unworkable approach to non-collaboration were irrelevant, it was the results that were important - numerous 3RR violations and a near-complete inability to work with anyone not willing to be a sycophant. His "experiment" could be a post-hoc attempt to rationalize his inability to collaborate and yet another way of making some ridiculous point about how he is being victimized, or it could be real. Who cares? If it was an experiment and it's now over, and he's going to stop acting like a toddler, perhaps we can start working with him. If it wasn't and it's all bluff, he'll either screw up again (and perhaps this time, does WP:BOLD apply to blocks?) because his past history indicates zero ability to learn, or he'll continue to hold his breath until he gets his way cease to engage in talk pages and contribute only sporadically. Either way, those who actually want to build an encyclopedia can continue with their work. The purpose is to build the wiki; either he'll continue his disruption (and hopefully this time get permablocked) or lay off and we're all good. Block = more drama (or zero if his "experiment" is concluded - was there a control group where the people didn't try to be aggravating and just edited per their own initiative?), waiting for one more belligerent error = no drama until it happens. WLU (t) (c) ^{(rules - simple rules)} 11:22, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Concur :-) David Ruben ^Talk 20:12, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

My wonder would be if this is worth intervening over - Guido's problem with consensus probably has more to do with his inability to accept it. Trying to dial down the drama, I'll monitor and see where this goes. WLU (t) (c) ^{(rules - simple rules)} 22:33, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Apparently there is a phase II. I now support a block. Heartily. WLU (t) (c) ^{(rules - simple rules)} 01:36, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I have been referred here to see what the status is Here. As I have stated, I have tried to help others understand how hard it is to deal with a disabling disease. I tried in the last ANI report to get others to understand Guido and I totally sympathise with him. That being said, he is back to the article making the same points that he did prior to his blocking. I am sorry to add that I am now for a total topic ban for him. As the link I provide shows, there is a lot of concern that he is going on to phase 2 of his experiment and this should not be allowed. Suggestions to bring it back to ANI is being discussed too. I believe the last one was archived because the thought was that he was leaving so there was no reason to continue. I also feel that at the time the consensus was leaning towards the ban of the pages that he has such a strong POV. Of course please check the last ANI to be sure because I am on strong medications and maybe remembering incorrectly but this time I do not think I am. I hope someone will tend to this before it gets out of control and the disruptions turn into another edit war and/or sinks into WP:NPA problems. I just came here to voice my opinion. As can be seen in my comments at the ANI I was sympathetic but I was also for the ban. Thanks for listening, --CrohnieGal^Talk 14:51, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

User_talk:WLU/RFC#Just_in_case, feel free to add. WLU (t) (c) ^{(rules - simple rules)} 15:54, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Random help request 'cause I happen to be here

So, Dave,

Know anything about infoboxes? Witness my struggles - [21], and [22]. WLU (t) (c) ^{(rules - simple rules)} 22:40, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Never mind, I've posted the question elsewhere - though if you want to help me out there, I'd be grateful! WLU (t) (c) ^{(rules - simple rules)} 23:02, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Guido den Broeder AN section

Note that a discussion of guido has started - my RFC page was to inform it, but events have outpaced my ability to review contribs - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Improper_use_of_MfD_page.3F WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 03:00, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Wow, i have few heavy real-life days (plus main computer action being watching Vista's installer taking best part of 10hours (details if you really want to know) to re-intall and regain a broadband access that had dropped from 7Mb to 0.007Mb - slower than dial up and marginally slower than my garden's snails) and your subpage workup made superfluous, AN/I started through his wikilawyering, and then he manages to be as obstinate as ever, so helping to speedy the discussion to his banning.

I agree, it would have looked neater for the more structured format you had been drafting, but the AN/I tussle did have advantage of a lot of editors rapidly involved and a fairly tight discussion (although it rambled at times) that got on with issue of considering whether a disruptive editor or not, and a decission made. Its like blinking whilst watching paint drying to find the room has been furnished & dressed in the moment.David Ruben ^Talk 00:02, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

It's moving faster than you seem to be aware. This was filed on his behalf. [23] I don't think this will ever end but it sure is moving around quite quickly. I really wish things were different but it is what it is I guess, a monster. --CrohnieGal^Talk 12:45, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I've noticed, but there seems enough (too many) "involved" people commenting and ArbCom starting to state their views, that I'll sit back and watch - but thanks anyway :-) David Ruben ^Talk 23:24, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I am doing too. :) --CrohnieGal^Talk 12:08, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

And RfArb concluded with rejection David Ruben ^Talk 02:31, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

And now, for Fvasconcellos' traditional nonsectarian holiday greeting!

Wherever you are, and whether you're celebrating something or not, there is always a reason to spread the holiday spirit! So, may you have a great day, and may all your wishes be fulfilled in 2009! Fvasconcellos (t·c) 14:28, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Is this a combination of my Christmas greeting from 2006 and my New Year's greeting from last year? Why, it most certainly is! Hey, if it ain't broke...

Responsed needed

Hi, my note [[24]here] has not recieved a response so I figured I would ask you. Thanks! Sheepeh (talk) 01:30, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Sure - seemed commercial pushing promo and totally unsupported as a viewpoint (other means of inspecting lesions exist,so would need a good secondary source to assess relative merits) - I've hacked out much of the twaddle :-) David Ruben ^Talk 17:28, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

PS WT:MED alternative place to raise issues, as its teh doctor's mess - you don't need be qualified yet to hang out there :-), why not sign up as participant of the project ? - I'll so post to your talkpage. David Ruben ^Talk 17:32, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thank you for the warm welcome! There's a lot do here.

Best regards, Mainak (talk) 12:29, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Psychiatrists sadly in short supply at the Medicial Wikiproject, and a lot of anti-psychiatry patient and alternative-medicine pushing, so you are particularly welcome :-) Let me know if you need any help over adding material, citing sources, or help with any conflicts (if in a dispute do not repeatedly revert, but go to the talk page and if unable resolve there then goto WT:MED for other editor opinions & help, ie avoid WP:3RR and more importantly your own burnout). David Ruben ^Talk 16:37, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Osteitis fibrosa cystica could use your help!

Strombollii from the Wikipedia:WikiProject AP Biology 2008 could really use your help on his current project: Osteitis fibrosa cystica. He has had trouble finding suitable information (in both verifiability and quantity) for the topic and is relatively unfamiliar to the style and formating for medicine articles on Wikipedia. As a friend, I told him I would gladly message those who I respected as fellow wiki-editors and who I believed could add to his medicine related article. You, of course (from your help and critizim in Osteochondritis dissecans), were one of my choices. So if you can spare the time, I am sure your help would be much appreciated. Again, thank you for your own help in my article... without you and several other editors, I would have never made GA. Cheers! Food_Puma 23:45, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi, good to hear from you. Sure - I'll have a look and see if I can help out a bit :-) David Ruben ^Talk 00:51, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

On a personal note, I was wondering if I could scan images from my own knee surgery (OATs procedure over winter break) that were taken arthroscopically? (I am not quite sure what to call it... arthroscopic telescope, camera, etc... ideas?) Strangely enough, I am actually walking this time instead of being non-weight bearing for some 12 weeks; apparently the more one walks, the more the cartilidge plug becomes flush with the surrounding articular carilidge. Oh, and 90mg of oxycodone per day for about 4 days after my nerve block wore off (20mg oxyontins with Percocet(5mg of oxycodone))... and I was still in pain! Looking back, I can't imagine how bad it would have hurt without the medicine... Food_Puma 01:34, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Ouch - sorry to hear of that, presumably therefore the reason why you had chosen the topic to edit and worked so hard understanding the condition - anyway I trust you recover soon. As for using your own images, assuming no copyright issues (might possibly reside with the hospital that took them), then yes clearly no issues of patient-confidentiality if you choose to upload them yourself. As for name "Image:Knee arthroscopy showing xxx" would be descriptive if of just of a particular problem/feature, or perhaps "Image:Knee arthroscopy during osteoarticular transfer system (OATs) procedure" ? Remember to add the appropriate GFDL and copyright tagging on uploading. David Ruben ^Talk 02:01, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the advice on the Osteitis fibrosa cystica page: I'm implementing some of your tips and advice now. It's so nice to have a clear, scholarly, objective opinion on the article. My judgement's a bit cloudy, I believe.Strombollii (talk) 05:19, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

"scholarly" <Hehe> no expert on this specific topic, but thanks for elevation onto the pedestal - I'll try and continue to help out :-) David Ruben ^Talk 13:39, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Ha, you're certainly more knowledgeable than myself. I expanded on the parathyroid carcinoma section, but I feel as though I may have been too wordy/went a bit too deep on the section. I'm having trouble: I feel the need to mention that Parathyroid carcinoma can be the result of a genetic defect, but should I mention that the actual gene is HRPT2, which codes for a tumor-inhibiting protein?Strombollii (talk) 17:39, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Also, in relation to the MEN1 section, should I remove some information, such as the location of Menin or the chromosome on which the mutation occurs, or should I just cut out some of the language in between facts, making the section briefer as a result of being less verbose?Strombollii (talk) 17:49, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

certainly cut out detailed info on MEN such as the chromosome position (only needed in the MEN article itself) David Ruben ^Talk 20:43, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you again! I think I may have found some pictures for the article too.. now to secure permission! On a different note, does the sentence, " Primary hyperparathyroidism is threefold higher in patients with diabetes.[16]" sound grammatically correct, or make sense? Strombollii (talk) 14:58, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

No and Not really. Grammatically could be read as the level of the excess parathyroid hormone is increased in diabetics (i.e. those diabetics who get this, do so more severely), rather than that the occurance rate is more likely in such a subgroup of people. As for sense, a large relative risk difference (the "threefold") is meaningless if the absolute risk level starts off very small (3 times a tiny number is still a tiny number) and so the excess risk remains small. Worse the abstract (at least) does not mention what the absoute risk levels are,so to report on this as currently in article seems sensationalism and can not be judged by the reader for overall importance.; hence if the values were from 17% of the whole population to 51% of diabetics then clearly a major concern, but if 0.001% to 0.003% in diabetics then of accademic interest only. So perhaps rephrase along lines of "Primary hyperparathyroidism has been observed to be more common in patients with diabetes.[16]" - I've used "observed" as there is no mechanism given in that reference to explain why this should be so (who knows, perhaps this is indirect effect as diabetics may get diabetic kidney disease, and chronic renal failure is of course already noted in the article as a possible cause of hyperparathyroidism...). David Ruben ^Talk 20:27, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you -- good advice. I never re-checked the article, and I'm sure it would have been shot down at some point in the review process. Strombollii (talk) 22:41, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

If I were to find information on the typical age of instance for hyperparthyroism/OFC, what section would that fall under? Epidemology? Strombollii (talk) 12:44, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Depends, might if very little information come under Signs and Symptoms, so for example club foot would describe as congenital inverted foot noticed at or shortly after birth (but no need then say in separate Epidemiology section that congenital). If talking about male/female ratio, onset of presentation and (a big AND in this example) geographcal distribution (or at least current conditioned occurance) then yes place into Epidemiology section as per medical manual of style Wikipedia:MEDMOS#Diseases/disorders/syndromes. Short answer is use the WP:MEDMOS but as it notes "This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style. Editors should follow it, except where common sense and the occasional exception will improve an article" - so up to you :-) David Ruben ^Talk 19:58, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Haha thank you. I'm sort of working on putting a Epidemiology section together, and some of it is mind-boggling. But in other news, thank you for all of your help on the article -- it just passed GA, and I doubt it would have went so smoothly without your help. Strombollii (talk) 22:38, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Warning Message

In regards to this warning message, I think if you're going to warn Lassesen, you should also be warning RetroS1mone. Her commentary on the CFS Talk Page has also been condescending (the overall tone) and accusatory (the "activist" comment), not to mention the unverifiable accusations/republishing of information from private message boards (first para) and stating facts that simply aren't in evidence (same link as previous - again with the "activist" accusations...big difference between "moderator" and "activist"). There are other examples if you feel the masochistic need to look for them <g>, but I think those ones will give you the gist of the recent problems. --Rob (talk) 09:52, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm, yes I get the gist, care needed over "activist" and "moderator" (although moderating a large forum would make him active if not an "activist"). However recruiting new editors in an external forum would risk WP:MEAT which might affect how consensus is viewed, and as an extreme, count if there were any revert-warring (not that I understand that this has occured recently) - restricted access issues makes referencing here in wikipedia's discussions though very difficult. I rather suspect Guido experience (he too involved in a patient support group and seemed to be pressing for a particular view - although later claim of studying wikipedia with various editing approaches casts a question mark over reality of POV/COI aspects), cast a somewhat deep shadow and so someone again from a patient group pressing for a stance that goes against the mainstream (however flawed that might be, but not within WP's remit for WP:SPOV "truth" vs an encyclopaedia's WP:V for WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE) - but I would agree on the need for not tarnishing (or be seen to tarnish) other editors automatically with the same brush. [25] not that problematic, IMHO, as a response to a previous personal comment, indeed then going out of their way to indicate proper interactional behaviour reflection (ie RfC) only to be tersely rejected [26] - indeed [27] is perhaps more clearly an issue of AGF breach. Oh well, I'm rambling somewhat and I'm not going to get into the count the cummulative degrees of AGF, so on balance, perhaps a balancing "nudge" too then :-)David Ruben ^Talk 14:12, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree, if he's a "moderator", we can almost certainly equate that with "active", but at least one hopes that a moderator generally tries to maintain an NPOV. And yes, if indeed he's recruiting, I can see the problems with that. I hadn't really considered that as a concern before it came up, but I can definitely see the issue now that it's been mentioned. Anyway, thanks for your attention...I think the entire article has become a bit of a batttleground recently, and admittedly, there's been less-than-stellar behaviour on all sides at times. But hopefully it'll die down soon enough and we can get on with the business at hand. --Rob (talk) 00:29, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

WPMED

Sure, that seems sensible - I won't complain! The real concern is "public" templates being targeted, so ones which only we ever see should be safer. :-) Shimgray | talk | 10:43, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the eMedicine cleanup. --Arcadian (talk) 06:21, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Dermatology task force references page

Concerning Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Dermatology_task_force/Sources#Citing_online_sources, I wanted to know if instructions on how to cite online sources were already found somewhere on Wikiproject Medicine, and if so, if we could simply link over to that instead of having full instructions on the derm page? I want to make the above page as simple as possible, with my goal being to only summarize critical information in a small page for new derm contributors, with links for further reading if desired. Please edit the page if you can help. Thanks in advance! kilbad (talk) 12:47, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:MED#Other ideas part on "Add high-quality references..." starts by link to what to link to, i.e. the Wikipedia:Reliable sources (medicine-related articles), and then gives link to Diberri's tool at http://diberri.dyndns.org/wikipedia/templates/?type=pmid (this should be pushed IMHO)

Meanwile Wikipedia:Manual of Style (medicine-related articles)#Citing medical sources goes into the cite.php ref-taged footnote systema and various medical external link templates - that probably surfices :-) David Ruben ^Talk 18:52, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your quick reply. Then, would you help me edit down the derm page to what you think are the bare essential comments? kilbad (talk) 21:46, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Hmmmm, what's purpose of the sub page - explain how to write and insert a reference (seems duplication me) or suggest suitable good sources for dermatology topics (i.e. a list of major and generally easily accessible textbooks, and help by giving the most recent edition numbers) ? I think the howto bit I would shorten to:

"See WP:MEDRS for information on reliable sources in medical articles, and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (medicine-related articles)#Citing medical sources explains how to insert references. PubMed lists most important English biomedical journals and is free to search for abstracts and some links to full articles. From the PubMed PMID abstract number, Diberi's tool will generate the necessary {{Cite journal}} markup code along with the enclosing <ref>....</ref> tags for inline references."

Things to perhaps add to the page might be links to the open, free and useful sources for commentary and patient leaflets of:

• New Zealand Dermatological Society at http://www.dermnetnz.org
• British Association of Dermatologists at http://www.bad.org.uk/
• American Academy of Dermatology at http://www.aad.org/

These, whilst not sources for immense research or pathophysiology details, are useful to help establish the basics which can be otherwise hard to cite online and, very importantly, confirm what standard conventional medical practice is :-) David Ruben ^Talk 23:27, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

If I may interject, linking to User:Diberri/Template filler may be more efficient than a direct external link. Diberri doesn't object to other people editing that page, so if you come up with useful clarifications that would apply to all fields, you could put them directly on that page. --Arcadian (talk) 00:04, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes agree, a better link to his tool. David Ruben ^Talk 02:05, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Is it ok to use words like: here are some "good" or "recommended" reliable secondary sources? Or does that have to be determined by consensus? kilbad (talk) 01:04, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Nothing wrong with such terms, but perhaps invites others to start adding their own link or perhaps complain of opinionated. Perhaps keep descriptive eg as "national dermatology associations of:". David Ruben ^Talk 02:05, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

How does the page look now... I did some editing this morning? kilbad (talk) 13:27, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Atorvastatin

Hi there David. Wouldn't it have been better to have a quick go at wikifying this instead of removing it? It is certainly relevant information, although it was presented in a very unencyclopedic format. Best, Fvasconcellos (t·c) 23:19, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I rather took view that of rather dubious low-level fact dumping, eg the last section of that edit "Amlodipine - In a drug-drug interaction study in healthy subjects, co-administration of atorvastatin 80 mg and amlodipine 10 mg resulted in an 18% increase in exposure to atorvastatin which was not clinically meaningful." and if not clinically meaningful then I suspect not notable for inclusion at all in a general encyclopaedia.

Some of this might be better in the general Statin#Drug_interactions section to compare and contrast. For example the initial 2 paragraphs of that edit discussing HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors & fibric acid derivatives is already succintly covered by single sentance at Statin. Likewise mention of grapefruit juice.

I appreciate range of opinions on how much to duplicate within articles of individual drugs vs articles on drug classes, but this just felt like a long list without framework for importance or distinguishing features specific for this one drug, and most points at that stage seemed best to delete rather than tweak into some wikified stance. Perhaps I was too harsh and deletionist ? :-) David Ruben ^Talk 23:34, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Can I have your support

I know you have been helping with the dermatology task force, and wanted to know if you would support a recent CfD that I proposed at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2009_January_26#Category:Diseases_of_skin_appendages? kilbad (talk) 12:09, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

What are you censoring

my message to Fvasconcellos, about the feelings of shame and guilt about Nazi glorification by editors who claim to be German? 70.137.130.4 (talk) 22:45, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Fvasconcellos knows me well. I can't hear when "Germans" are bragging with their war history and nationalism. What is wrong with that? Cant' I express my feelings of shame about that? I am a German... 70.137.130.4 (talk) 23:41, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Read on my talk page, and read it SLOWLY, before raising the right arm in a British REFLEX, as soon as the word German comes up. A whole generation of German anti-fascists has grown old mourning the victims of the atrocities of the Nazi regime and actively working on the building of a liberal democracy and the eradication of fascist idiocy. Censorship has been one of the marks of fascism. 70.137.130.4 (talk) 16:45, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

To be honest I have no idea what you are talking about. Reading Fvasconcellos' talk page on its own gives no context where this issue came up, nor really which editors you are talking about (if about Fvasconcellos, then please be aware he is a respected editor and thought worthy of being an admin). Reading your talk page makes even less sense (care to restart this with some background explanation, edit history links etc ?). As I'm not aware of having had any previous interaction with you, "What are you censoring" is insulting. Likewise your talk page initially seems to read as mere attacks on editors (rather than discussing article improvement), but again possibly only because you have provided no basis for me to latch onto whatever you grievence actually is. Please have a read of WP:AGF. David Ruben ^Talk 01:10, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

If you look at the context, it appears as if we have sock account or the like or one or several editors with strikingly similar edit patterns, including edits to aryan nazi, SS, nordic etc. These have disfigured articles by insertion of forged citations (title of citation altered, content unrelated to citation, introduction of systematic hard to find disinformation). Also bragging how they as Germans would have been supreme to anything else with their elites in WW2 etc. This guy calls himself German and I am ashamed of "Germans" who base their nationalist pride on their wonderful WW2 and Nazi history. Fvasconcellos is a fine and helpful and very respectable editor, who has helped sorting out the inserted subtle vandalism by forged citations, and who also has helped me with many discussions. He also discovered the striking similarities of these several accounts and suspected they are socks. Thats why I confided to him my disgust over the German-nationalist pride of that kind. You reverted that on his talk page. It belonged to the discussion of the suspected sock accounts, and indeed I have speculated over their motivation for such edits. I called your revert censorship, because you removed my part of the conversation without looking at the context. I also would not like, when talking to a friend on the telephone, if suddenly an interruption occurs and a voice says "Your conversation has become inappropriate and has been interrupted by the telephone civility service". 70.137.130.4 (talk) 02:01, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Ah, my most humble appologies - re this edit to Fvasconcellos talk page - had seemed lacking in context and I had (wrongly assumed from the thread's long nature and multiple edits) as trolling. Please do revert back (or I can if you wish, but I don't want to compound confusion any further) unless discussion moved on elsewhere :-) David Ruben ^Talk 02:15, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind understanding, I am glad we discussed that. Peace. 70.137.130.4 (talk) 02:30, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Osteochondritis dissecans ready for FA?

I am at a loss for how to improve the article as it stands. Recently my edits have mainly been focusing on minor copyediting, and at this point I feel as though it's time to jump the cliff and hope for the best. I was advised by my teacher (JimmyButler to wait until my diagram images have passed OTRS verification. At that point, would you support a move for FA? Kind regards, Food_Puma 21:25, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you note

Hi David - Thank you so much for editing Meningococcal meningitis A,C,Y & W-135 vaccine "Drugbox" and "References" as well. We are indeed grateful to you. Peter grotzinger (talk) 03:41, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Medical procedure

If you had a moment, I wanted to know if I could get your feedback concerning guidelines for articles about medical procedures? I posted a thread at: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(medicine-related_articles)#Guidelines_for_articles_relating_to_medical_procedures. Regardless, thank you again for your work on wikipedia. kilbad (talk) 21:28, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Cardiology task force

Cardiology task force is looking for editors to help build and maintain comprehensive, informative, balanced articles related to Cardiology on Wikipedia. Start by adding your name to the list of participants at Cardiology task force Participants. ECG Unit (Welcome!)

-- Addbot (talk) 00:06, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Maen. K. A. (talk) 09:41, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

re:Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-03-02/Discussion report

Hello, Davidruben. You have new messages at Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-03-02/Discussion report.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

§hep^Talk 04:17, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Hello, Davidruben. You have new messages at Rifleman 82's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

WQA

Hello, I am just writing this to let you know that another user has filed a WQA about you here. Thanks. The Seeker 4 Talk 14:53, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

reply

Thanks, Dave, for the welcome message. And since I use Wikipedia to such a great extent- in fact-in preference to Encarta or any other general information source - I thought I might try to participate.

I congratulate you on this very helpful site. Altruism is pretty rare these days, and this creation is an act of altruism and ( I'm sure) represent a source of considerable sacrifice of your time.

Thanks again, CraigSkyraderuniform1 (talk) 18:17, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Add: I'll be glad to help however I'm able. I'll check-out the medicine portal. One problem: I type like a chimp. But I suppose I'm trainable - my wife taught me to stop barking at the mailmanm,and chasing cars. C.Skyraderuniform1 (talk) 18:17, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I hope therefore you consider yourself a youngish dog, for old dogs and tricks... :-) David Ruben ^Talk 03:29, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

File:Human fetus 10 weeks - therapeutic abortion.jpg

Hello, I wrote to the author of this photo about your question. She is a medical doctor, student of gynaecology and obstetrics. She ansewered me "10 weeks gestation, (i.e. from LMP)". If you have any questions regarding this case please don't esitate to ask me and I will ask she. Best regards, Jacopo Werther (talk) 12:19, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Many thanks. David Ruben ^Talk 19:13, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Allergy reaction to epinephrine injection?

I went to the doctor for my Asthma and I had an asthma attack. My face went white and they shot my in my leg with epinephrine. I've been in the hospital for four days because I could not walk. My legs was very jittery. I just what to know if this has ever happen to anyone else beside me? Please let me know ASAP.

69.247.169.76 (talk)Anita69.247.169.76 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:53, 25 March 2009 (UTC).

We do not give out personal advice at Wikipedia. You might want to reflect whether what you describe (legs jittery) might be from the severe asthma attack itself (or its causative trigger) rather than the epinephrine (or other medications later) given. Even if you could be certain the jittery legs was caused by the epinephrine itself, that would be an adverse effect rather than an immune-system mediated allergic reaction (you make epinephrine naturally yourself in smaller amounts, so you can not be allergic to it, but perhaps to the additional preservative agents) - but more importantly, so what ? What else is one to do in a potentitially life threatening asthma attack ? If you have questions or concerns about your health and medical issues, then please discuss that with your doctor who will know your specific details - the internet/forums can't substitute for such professional and individualised advice :-) David Ruben ^Talk 17:57, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Template:Infobox_Shinto_shrine

Hi, David. I am dropping a line to see if you can help me with the Template:Infobox_Shinto_shrine, which you fixed recently. I have written a glossary of Shinto terms and would like to add a link to it at the bottom of the template. Tried to do it myself, but couldn't. Can you help? Thanks in advance. urashimataro (talk) 06:53, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Sure, show me the glossary of terms link. Also should the link be at the bottom vs the top, or perhaps not at all and instead be something linked-to from the main article of shinto shrine ? David Ruben ^Talk 14:49, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks for the prompt reply and the help. I will finish today the article, then send you the link. I would like the link to be at the bottom of the template, where the link to the defunct Shinto portal used to be. I will see how you do it and will try to learn, because it's an operation I will have to do again in the future.

Ok - I'll await your providing the link David Ruben ^Talk 13:58, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi. The article has been posted under the name Glossary of Shinto. Many thanks for your help. urashimataro (talk) 00:45, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

 Done and I've copied most of this thread to Template talk:Infobox Shinto shrine so that becomes clearer there where latest edit derived from. David Ruben ^Talk 00:59, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

That was super fast. Thanks. urashimataro (talk) 01:22, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

but see its talk page for suggested appending {{Shinto2}} (which itself has link to Glossary of Shinto) - although that itself perhaps should be renamed to {{Shintoism}} ? David Ruben ^Talk 01:27, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi. Shinto is much more common than Shintoism, and standard in Wikipedia. Shintoism for example redirects to Shinto, and Shinto is the name of the portal.

Sorry, I've confused you (or am talking at cross purposes in which case my apology for the following). There are different "spaces":

• Articles have the square brackets hence [[Shinto]] displaying as Shinto.
• The portal I think you refer to is a taskforce of a Wikiproject, namely Wikipedia:WikiProject Japan/Shinto task force which has an abbreviated redirect of WP:SHINTO.
• But here I'm considering template space, i.e. [[Template:Shinto2]] which is invoked/used with curley brackets per: {{Shinto2}} within some articles (quite different from [[Shinto2]] which would be a distinct article).

It is the choice of template name as "Shinto2" which seems IMHO poor for use within an article (i.e. the "2" bit), hence suggestion of [[Template:Shintoism]] (distinct from [[Template:Shinto]] currently used for various talk page headers), or if you don't like that as a name then perhaps [[Template:Shinto navigation]] (invoked as {{Shinto navigation}}) ? David Ruben ^Talk 12:16, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi, and sorry to be so late. Thanks again for the changes to the template. To be honest, I don't understand what you say, because I am not familiar with templates but, since you can program templates and I can't, I believe you must be right. If you decide to change the name of the template, let me know, and I will correct the files that pointed to its previous name. urashimataro (talk) 02:21, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

 Done - thanks I've so renamed to Template:Shintoism and adjusted the few article links that utilised it (Template:Shinto2). David Ruben ^Talk 16:15, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

One last thing. The Template:Infobox_Buddhist_temple suffers from the same bug the Template:Infobox_Shinto_shrine used to have and that you corrected: all parameters are mandatory. Could you could fix that (if you have the time and inclination: in the past year no one seems to have been too disturbed by the problem)? urashimataro (talk) 23:25, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

 Done parameters optional, website allows for any url with an "=" in it, image width coding seems far too complex so simplified (willcope with "px" added to img_size). Phone numbers inappropriate for wikipedia, instructions split off into /doc subpage etc. David Ruben ^Talk 02:15, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

question

Hi,

Would you be interested in volunteering some time and expertise to help the Wikimedia Foundation in a collaboration with the National Institutes of Health? I unfortunately do not have a lot of details to give at this time, but in short, I'm looking for a group of Wikimedians (primarily US or UK based, but that's not a requirement) that have interest or expertise in various medical fields, to help participate in a Wikimedia Academy event with the NIH. Even if you don't think you'd be able to attend the event, but would be interested in helping out online in any capacity, I'd love to hear back from you. Please leave a message on my talk page at User talk:Swatjester if you are interested. Thank you. ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 14:57, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

replied at User talk:Swatjester. David Ruben ^Talk 14:05, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank U

Thanks for the hospitality, hahaha! As an initial contribution to WikiProject Medicine, I made a list of acronyms on diseases and disorders and perhaps, in the future, I'll add on anything psyche-related. I'm very much willing to share my time with you guys! Timlight (talk) 09:30, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I've just realised duplicates intent of existing List of medical abbreviations - so will need merge items - but always good to have a fresh view of items and lets see what had been previously missed off :-) David Ruben ^Talk 17:43, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

The List of acronyms on diseases and disorders (without abbreviations used in prescriptions, laboratory, apothecary, etc.) is totally focused on names of diseases and disorders. Timlight (talk) 18:04, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Still duplicates somewhat (ie overlaps partly) - merge suggestions should not be removed until other editors can have a chance to discuss and reach an agreement - please restore the tags and then present your case for not merging. Once a consensus can be seen (after normally 7 days) decision can be made (at very least if diseases should have own list, then perhaps remove from the other list?) David Ruben ^Talk 23:20, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Italics of borrowed terms in English

(you wrote:) I saw you italised use of "e.g." in Meningitis, and whilst foreign words are gernally so shown per WP:MOSITALICS, WP:MOSITALICS#Foreign_terms goes on to state "Loan words or phrases that have common use in English, however—praetor, Gestapo, samurai, esprit de corps—do not require italicization. If looking for a good rule of thumb, do not italicize words that appear in Merriam-Webster Online." - and "e.g." does so appear per [28]. Now I agree that if the full phrase of "exempli gratia" were to be present in an article, that is not commonly used in English and would therefore need to be shown as exempli gratia, but "e.g." and "i.e." do not IMHO need flagging as foreign terms. Anyway I'm interested in your take on this (you clearly do a lot of good copyediting work) David Ruben ^Talk 13:03, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I do a fair amount of italicizing, I'll grant you that. I agree that if a word has, for practical purposes, become an English word, italics are not needed ("robot", for example, is now about as English as it is Czech). In marginal cases (one isn't likely to come across a taxi driver, butcher, or television newscaster using "e.g."), it's my general tendency to err on the side of italicizing, and my Latin training may have made me more sensitive to the presence of Latin in English than some other languages, expecially as I use modernized Latin on a daily basis, and various professors' influence still shows through. --Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 17:59, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Fair position :-) David Ruben ^Talk 20:20, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Shinto template again

Hi, David, and many thanks for your help. I have a favor to ask, when and if you find the time and inclination. I know you have other things to worry about.

I was wondering if you could create a variant of the {{Shintoism}} that included a photo and a caption on top. That would allow the fusion into one of the photo and the navigation bar in articles like this one, very useful because many articles abut Shinto are and will remain short. The torii icon would be lost, of course, but I don't think it would be missed. Thank you for the help you have already given, and feel free to ignore this request. urashimataro (talk) 00:23, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Good idea, I too had been irritated by that layout issue (but not thought more about it). The problem is that {{Shintoism}} uses the {{Religion}} template to set itself up, but that (wrongly, IMHO) is set up as an infobox (article specific summary points) rather than a consistent navigation-style box (giving links across a series of articles). A switch of underlying template construction would allow for an additional 2nd image (i.e. not just the relavant Portal's icon). I've set up a proposal to amend {{Religion}}, and then a fix to {{Shintoism}} would be very easy. David Ruben ^Talk 12:27, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi, David. I wonder how you manage to be an MD, a Wikipedian, and still find time to learn to code and be so prompt in taking care of my needs. That template has been de facto abandoned, and I would like to revive and revise its links. I personally would get rid of the present icon, but you can do as you wish, of course. Thanks. urashimataro (talk) 23:21, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm looking at templates using meta-temaplates and then second level metatemplates - which "That template has been de facto abandoned" do you mean ? I think {{Shintoism}} should appear on relevant 1rticles to do with shinto (with updated/corrected links as required). As for image, no keep - it is in keeping with {{Gnosticism}} or {{Taoism}} and likewise with {{Judaism}}, {{Islam}} & {{Christianity}} - sadly the latter 3 examples hard code their sidebar tables, when there really should be consistency across all religious articles (wikipedia is meant to be a body of work, not disparate collection of internet websites' styles). David Ruben ^Talk 23:36, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi David. I meant to say that the {{Shintoism}} template is hardly ever used, which is a pity. The links in it are outdated and the list incomplete, but updating them is a job I can do myself. When you say "As for image, no keep", you mean adding an image is impossible? The sentence isn't clear. urashimataro (talk) 04:04, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry - meant lets keep the current project icon image. As for adding an extra article specific image at the top (per issued you identified with Ōnusa), I'm working on the underlying {{Religion}} meta-template that Shintoism uses, so this should be possible soon :-) David Ruben ^Talk 05:00, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

IC/PBS

As a MD, could you give some input on the RfC we have at the Interstitial Cystitis talk page please? It may require a little reading, so only if you have some spare time. Thank you. ► RATEL ◄ 00:18, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

updating prenatal screening pages

David,

I am investor by profession and scientist by training. I have conducted extensive research into advances in the field of prenatal screening and own shares of SQNM. To this end, I have be motivated to share my insights with the internet community on Wikipedia.

While the my recent modifications of multiple articles on Wikipedia may appear like spamming and I may appear biased, please judge my posts on the merits of the information. If there had been only one page about prenatal screening, I would have made one post, but there are many pages and it takes some effort to modify all the pages so that they are consistent with one another. I don't believe a woman coming to wikipedia to learn about her prenatal screening options should get conflicting information from different pages. I have invested in SQNM because the SEQureDx test is a credible and significant advance; I am not spuriously claiming it as such simply because I have made an investment.

All the information I quote for SEQureDx can be verified based on what is available on the company's website at www.scmmlab.com, what has been published in peer-reviewer journals, and what has been presented at national conferences. The test was developed based on the work of research Dr. Dennis Lo, formerly of Oxford University and currently at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. You can find numerous publication by Dr. Lo and colleagues on the analysis of cell-free fetal nucleic acids in maternal blood for chromosomal abnormality screening.

The test will become available in June 2009. There is already considerably support among physicians for this kind of test because they all want their patients to benefit from the highest detection rates with the lowest false-positive rate, thereby minimizing the risk of miscarriages from invasive procedures.

Wikipedia is a powerful medium for people, regardless of their personal agendas, to share important and true information with those who stand to benefit from the knowledge. In this case, pregnant women who learn about SEQureDx and discuss it with their doctors will benefit significantly. One should not assume that the medical community will simply know about every meaningful advance overnight.

So I would ask you to review my posts on their merits, possibly amend them if they seem somehow promotional (though I have been entirely factual), and reconsider your position on them. I believe that removing all mention of SEQureDx from these articles is overly conservative. Regardless, I take your feedback to mean that you would be more agreeable to wikipedia articles being updated with information on SEQureDx once that test is launched in June (in 6 weeks) and therefore officially becomes part of obstetricians' collection of screening options. I will come back to review the articles at that point and, if others haven't already updated them with information about SEQureDx, I will suggest appropriate amendments then.

Also, it appears that you undid all my edits to the "Triple Test" article. That test really is obsolete - even if you remove references to SEQureDx, I think that the other edits explaining that the Quad test is more accurate than the Triple should be left in place. While few physicians still offer it, women would still benefit from knowing that better tests are available.

thank you,

Ne1ofmany (talk) 03:50, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, your self disclosure is helpful and welcomed - personally (ie professionally) I probably agree with almost all of your points, but heer in an encylopedia indeed far more conservative :-)

Multiple pages involves several aspects, not just whether seemingly over promotional, but also of relevance to individual article subjects (i.e. mention might be best in one article with then just brief cross mention elsewhere, certainly external links in 'See also' sections should be selective). Given patients read wikipedia articles and expect their care to match that (irrespective that wikipedia is specifically not written for patients or doctors but a general reader - per the disclaimers), articles should be very clear not to suggest something as standard operating practice which do not yet exist - but yes after June the item then becomes at least a real-world possibility.

Even after its American release, articles must take care re globalisation and not be US-specific. Indeed whilst these series of articles probably do read correctly for Western world/developed countries wikipedia's scope includes developing countries and I'ld be less sure that quad vs triple test has yet occured, and certainly high resolution ultrasonography for nuchal thickness measurement may not be widely available.

Some of your general editing to these articles was extremely good, although prenatal screening article section was overly long, so I started not to automatically reverted in entirity, but I agree on reflection I was perhaps overharsh with Triple test and so I have instead reverted back you contribution and then modified that :-)

Finally you need to read WP:COI and I'll post the standard information template to your talk page about this. David Ruben ^Talk 04:12, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

prenatal screening

David,

If you don't mind, I'll touch base with you in June and suggest modifications that include SEQureDx to all the pages where women might find information on prenatal screening. I'll provide you with peer-reviewed published references that you can confirm as well as information that the SCMM reference lab formally provides to patients and physicians on the performance characteristics of their test. At that point, if you find the information compelling and credible, I hope that you will make the modifications directly. I believe that women and physicians will find it relevant and useful.

Ne1ofmany (talk) 04:36, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Fine, I'll await the details with interest (as sounds promising and surely likely to then jump across the pond in time) - suggest you put the details in one place for everyone to examine, say Talk:Prenatal diagnosis probably the main article for this :-) Take care and hope the product launch proves as exciting as those test sensitivity/specificity levels suggest (specificity will need to be exceptionally good not to swamp services with false positives) :-) David Ruben ^Talk 13:34, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

David, you may be interested in reviewing the data they already have on their website: http://www.sequenom.com/getdoc/371cf819-9154-4ece-8b8f-7b927fd6fda0/March-2009-Corporate-Presentation

Or just go to www.sequenom.com and, in the lower right box under "What's New", check the top link titled "Analyst and Investor Briefing - March, 2009".

you'll see that the test the so far has a 99.7% specificity for Down Syndrome screening with a 95% confidence interval that excludes 98%. Therefore, even with the preliminary data set of only 359 samples, the test is already more specific that all of the conventional screening paradigms (which have specificities <95%). An increase in specificity from 95% to 99% represents an 80% reduction in false-positives and needless invasive procedures. This is one of the advantages that physicians we've surveyed are looking forward to, as it is difficult to counsel a patient through the decision of whether or not to get the amnio/CVS. At launch, they will have data from >1000 patients and therefore the confidence interval will be considerably tighter.

Will touch base with you in June.

Ne1ofmany (talk) 17:54, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Cholesterol Depletion

Thanks David. I appreciate your support for keeping this topic - it really is a big paradigm ripple. I am also in the process of thanking my critics as they have made me work very very hard at addressing the concerns. I hope they now see where this topic is going and its value. The paradigm shift in understanding membrane cholesterol, brought about the lipid raft hypothesis in 1997, has yet to penetrate the world of cardiology. While I will acknowledge their success in the use of statins - I ask them to consider the evidence of cholesterol's function and not to blindly push the limits on statin use without proper extensions to clinical research and trials. I co-authored a review paper on this matter which will be published shortly. we will then have a full examination of the non-cardiology issues of cholesterol mediated membrane functions. Glynwiki (talk) 16:36, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Infobox Hospital: Question

Hi David. Wonder if you can help me with this:

I'm trying to make the hospital's name appear above the photo and inside the Infobox Hospital. My coding, below, instead results in the name appearing above (outside) the box. What am I missing?

Thanks very much in any case.

Brian Donohue

University of Washington Medical Center
A UWMC technician prepares a patient for a PET/CT scan, which yields anatomic and metabolic information about bodily structures.
Geography
Location	1959 NE Pacific St., Seattle,, WA, U.S.
Organisation
Care system	Public
Type	Teaching
Services
Standards	JCAHO-accredited; Magnet status
Emergency department	1
Beds	450
Speciality	Multispecialty
History
Opened	1959
Links
Website	http://www.uwmedicalcenter.org/
Lists	Hospitals in U.S.
Other links	List of hospitals in the United States

UWM scribe (talk) 23:31, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Its appearance above and outside of the box was deliberate, but not for any great reason that I recall. Suggest set up a talk page straw poll to check is anyone has any great strong views on this - but coding change is easy (wikitable starting a row with "+ xxx" is an outer header, vs "! xxx" which is a bold internal row, or "| xxx" which bolds single cell David Ruben ^Talk 23:44, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the speedy reply, David. I'd like to place the header inside the box because that's where it is on Infobox University, which I also will have on this page; I'd like the boxes consistent. Please forgive my naivete; when I place an exclamation at the start of the name line, the box doesn't render. Would you be willing to code the box such that I can cut and paste? Many thanks for your time. UWM scribe (talk) 20:35, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Ooops sorry - outer header is "|+" (not "+" alone), examples:

{| border="1"
|+ Outer header
|-
| cell entry 1 || cell entry 2
|}

Outer header

cell entry 1

cell entry 2

{| border="1"
! bold inner header || header 2
|-
| cell entry 1 || cell entry 2
|}

bold inner header 1	header 2
cell entry 1	cell entry 2

{| border="1"
| '''bold plain entry''' || and this not bold
|-
| cell entry 1 || cell entry 2
|}

bold plain entry	and this not bold
cell entry 1	cell entry 2

I've set up a straw poll at Template talk:Infobox Hospital#Move Name into the box, and if others agree this can be ammended in few days :-) David Ruben ^Talk 21:42, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Rumination syndrome

Hey there. Seems you accidently started a new page at Talk:Rumination syndrome instead of moving the current talk page from Talk:Rumination Syndrome. Any chance you could do the delete so the old talk page can be moved if it hasn't been done already? --ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 06:41, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh, sorry - thought I had ticked the box to move the talk pages too. Anyway someone else has now move it. David Ruben ^Talk 18:21, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Case Histories

Hi Dave. I got your suggestion about moving the case histories. Which article are you referring to? A E Francis (talk) 02:37, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

BP

Apologies and thanks for correcting my ignorance! Frmatt (talk) 02:03, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Problem displaying formula in drugbox

Could you please have a look at Antimony pentasulfide? I tried to fontify the formula (| Sb=2 | S=5), but it doesn't show. Doesn't the drugbox work with anorganic compounds? Thanks --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 09:16, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Y Not a problem, rather an assumption made that all drugs would contain at least one of Carbon / Hydrogen / Oxygen / Nitrogen and so these 4 alone needed to be tested to decide if a formula have been defined or not by elements (vs the chemical_formula parameter)... so I'll add in sulphur for now :-) Hey it now shows (you might need to refresh your browser to reload the page) 22:34, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Wow, thanks! --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 06:50, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Livedoid vasculitis

Hi! My name is Marek. I am Polish wikipedist, MD (internal medicine) [29]. I am interested in Livedo reticularis and Livedoid vasculopathy. I have found a mistake in Livedoid vasculitis article. Livedo reticularis may be a sign of Livedoid vasculitis [30]. Livedoid vasculitis is a separate condition [31] [32]. A huge part of article looks upon Livedoid vasculitis as Livedo reticularis so I think this part should be moved into Livedo reticularis article. What do you think about this ? Thelarch80 (talk) 21:14, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Agree - per this edit summary back in 2007 I thought heirachy problem, but did not really know enough to be brave and boldly do what you now suggest. David Ruben ^Talk 01:42, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

On a separate note, why have you got a different username in english wikipedia - there is global logon now, so just log on to english wikipedia with your Polish wikipedia username and password and you should be in :-) David Ruben ^Talk 01:45, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

 Done I've moved contents of Livedoid vasculitis to livedo reticularis, but keeping intial desciption of this specific disorder. It leaves though Livedoid vasculitis looking very bare - can you word it up using teh eMedicine and DermNZ links already provided ? David Ruben ^Talk 02:09, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

I replied on my talk page regarding the categorization of these articles. ---kilbad (talk) 03:49, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Online Bolognia

I am working to make sure that all diseases and disease synonyms found in the text Dermatology by Bolognia (see WP:DERM:REF for full reference) are (1) found in the list of cutaneous conditions, and (2) either have an article stub or redirect to an appropriate article. With that being said, I have access to an online copy, and wanted to know if you would be interested in helping me with this project? If so, I can give you my Dermatology username and password for access. ---kilbad (talk) 19:28, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

If it can wait about 3 weeks, then yes would be a pleasure to help out (holiday and the mad rush prior to clear my in-tray against backdrop of exponential swine flu cases). David Ruben ^Talk 00:29, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the warm welcome!

I look forward to helping with the medicine wikiproject. Craig Hicks (talk) 12:53, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Request for Participation in Wikipedia Research

David Ruben,

Your Request for Adminship (RfA) process was reviewed and studied by our research team at Carnegie Mellon University early in our project to gain insights into the process. We reviewed what voters discussed about your case, and what qualifications you brought to the table as a candidate. In total 50 cases were personally read and reviewed, and we based our further research questions in part on your case.

In continuing our research, I would like to personally invite you to participate in a survey we are conducting to get perspective from people who have participate in the RfA process. The survey will only take a few minutes of your time, and will aid furthering our understanding of online communities, and may assist in the development of tools to assist voters in making RfA evaluations. We are NOT attempting to spam anyone with this survey and are doing our best to be considerate and not instrusive in the Wikipedia community. The results of this survey are for academic research and are not used for any profit nor sold to any companies. We will also post our results back to the Wikipedia community.

This survey is part of an ongoing research project by students and faculty at the Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science and headed by Professor Robert Kraut.

Take the survey

Thank you!

If you have any questions or concerns, feel free comment on my talk page.

CMUResearcher (talk) 19:26, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Hello

Just a note to say that I've missed you. I hope that the swine flu in-tray problem has calmed down since July. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:53, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks - UK swine flu rates dropped to below normal seasonal levels, but looks like building back up in last couple weeks (yet to personally see). Other workload though not really settled (in part effect of others having holiday/being off) - hope to ease myself back into wikipedia... :-) David Ruben ^Talk 15:37, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Welcome back. They give you guys days off in the UK? :) MastCell ^Talk 19:49, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes we get holidays (generally 5-6 weeks not including bank holidays), mind you come back to a lot in the intray and having worked doubly hard to clear the backlog it sort of cancels out the restorative effects :-( David Ruben ^Talk 00:22, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Five to six weeks of vacation? Damn... another point for socialized medicine. :P MastCell ^Talk 04:28, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

But 4-5 weeks I think the norm in UK for most jobs, not just a perk of our public medical service... From Work-life balance#Global comparisons "American workers average approximately ten paid holidays per year while British workers average twenty-five holidays and German employees thirty." - our most unqualified posts get more paid leave than US professionals - wow, I really feel sorry for you lot :-( David Ruben ^Talk 00:33, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that's an accurate comparison. A fairly typical entry-level professional package in the US is 20 days (four weeks) of paid time off [sick leave + vacation], plus five to eight holidays. My husband's current employer separates sick and vacation leave, with all employees getting two weeks of paid sick leave, and vacation time depending on how long you've been with the company (two weeks your first year, three weeks the next year, four weeks the fourth [I think] year). So if you've been with the company for a few years, it's not really very different from the European norms. It's really only low-skill workers that can expect to have two weeks (or less) of paid vacation time.

For a perhaps more pointful comparison, a pediatrics resident told me this summer that she had been offered a position that provided the equivalent of about eleven weeks of paid vacation (although I don't think this could be taken as a single eleven-week-long holiday). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:03, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Peritoneal dialysis

Hi to Dave and associated watchers,

I've recently significantly reworked peritoneal dialysis. It was substantially unsourced so I stubbed it. An employee of Baxter International expanded, with reference to their website and products so I restubbed it and substantially rewrote it using books rather than journal articles. Probably unduly prejudicial but at least all the statements are now sourced and the tone is a bit better. Then I went back into the history and found out who the original author was (you, embarassed cough) and thought I'd ask for a review.

Stalkers of Dave's talk page and my contributions are welcome to review. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 17:12, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Opinon needed

Dear Dr.Dave, please tell me if you think Limb salvage surgery should be added to this Template:Operations and other procedures on the musculoskeletal system or this Template:Muscle/soft tissue procedures or does it fall best under both? Please let me know! Thanks.- BennyK95 - Talk 18:48, October 9 2009 (UTC)

Unblock user:citation bot

Please review reply by the owner of the bot and unblock it if appropriate - we do need it functional. Materialscientist (talk) 23:45, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

seems from bot's talk page still doing some author/author1 parameter mixups, so possibly further small tweak needed to the code ? (I'll pop back this evening to see where we are with things)David Ruben ^Talk 07:37, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

New Infobox

Hi David. For the List of African Movie Academy Awards ceremonies, I have created a new infobox. I relied heavily on the existing Academy Award infobox in creating the new infobox. The new infobox is stored at my subpage. What is the next step now? Could you please assist me in finalizing the infobox, so that I can use this infobox on the respective articles? Thank you. Amsaim (talk) 00:13, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Comparison of birth control methods

An editor has nominated one or more articles which you have created or worked on, for deletion. The nominated article is Comparison of birth control methods. We appreciate your contributions, but the nominator doesn't believe that the article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion and has explained why in his/her nomination (see also Wikipedia:Notability and "What Wikipedia is not").

Your opinions on whether the article meets inclusion criteria and what should be done with the article are welcome; please participate in the discussion(s) by adding your comments to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Comparison of birth control methods. Please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~).

You may also edit the article during the discussion to improve it but should not remove the articles for deletion template from the top of the article; such removal will not end the deletion debate.

Please note: This is an automatic notification by a bot. I have nothing to do with this article or the deletion nomination, and can't do anything about it. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 01:44, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks!

:) Care to work on some other sections as well? Best, Fvasconcellos (t·c) 14:56, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

And now, for FV's traditional last-minute nonsectarian holiday greeting!

Here’s wishing you a happy end to the holiday season and a wonderful 2010. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 15:12, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Zidovudine

I've left a query for you on the Zidovudine (AZT) Talk page Eye.earth (talk) 19:59, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Considering a few new categories

I am considering adding a few more dermatology-related categories. I have posted a thread at: Talk:List_of_cutaneous_conditions#Additional_sections_.7C_categories. Could I get your feedback regarding this issue? ---kilbad (talk) 01:55, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Adding differential diagnosis to the infobox

Wishing to add a link to DiagnosisPro to the infobox. This provides an exhaustive differential which will hopefully allow us to removed the long lists from many articles. I see you have worked on these templates in the past. Any comments and would you be able to help in the implementation of this? Not sure how to program the template.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:52, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Hey David What is the next step from here?Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:57, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I was sort of hoping might get at least a couple other editors to comment/agree on proposal, rather than just the two of us acting alone/in a void. I'm gonna be busy next couple days, so if no further action at Template_talk:Infobox_symptom#Differential_diagnosis by then (and allowing the proposal about a week), then I'll enact the coding :-) David Ruben ^Talk 03:13, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes sounds good. There are a couple more comments here Wikipedia_talk:MED#Differential_diagnosis_in_the_disease_box.3F. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:35, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

NAFLD/NASH

Not sure why you moved content about NASH to the steatohepatitis article. NASH is an advanced form of NAFLD and hence should be discussed in context. "Steatohepatitis" can be caused by other conditions rather than just alcohol of insulin resistance. JFW | T@lk 20:50, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

True, but the NAFLD article was jumping back and forth between NAFLD and NASH and so lost clarity of what was just NAFLD (similar would be to include repeated jumps in an angina article to acute myocardial infarction - one is a more severe state than the other, but not really helpful to oscillate between the two in the same article). Steatohepatitis is not though of course just the overall picture when alcoholic steatosis "goes bad", as there is more going than just this in alcoholic liver disease. "purer" might be to have article for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis distinct from steatohepatitis (where it currently redirects), but is that really necessary (cirrhosis article does not get split into separate articles for each of its causes) ? Anyway I'm not really fixed to any particular view on how the collection of articles should be merged or separated, but the existing status was confusing to me and needed some form of tweaking :-) David Ruben ^Talk 01:30, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Can you do a merge?

Could you merge the article for Virusoid into Satellite (biology)? I don't know anybody that would distinguish between these two, with the possible exception of Virusoid being the common term in agriculture-botany and satellite being the more common term in genetics. I would perform the edit myself, but I am short on time and looking for a second opinion.--Frozenport (talk) 00:37, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Defeats me - however is not Satellite (biology)an infecting virus particle (which needs a carrier virus), but virusoid closer to Satellite DNA ? Needs an expert at this point. Suggest add {{mergefrom|x}} and {{mergeto|x}} at top of respected pages to invite others to comment ? David Ruben ^Talk 01:01, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks

Many, many thanks for your clarifying edits on the Cervarix article. It is now readable, easy to understand and yet has the necessary medical components as well.

Shearonink (talk) 23:34, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback - always good to know when activity is appreciate (we all tend to comment on WP when critising or defending a position, so positive feedback makes it seem all the more worthwhile). David Ruben ^Talk 00:41, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Cervarix

Please could you revisit Talk:Cervarix#Propose_additions_to_Clinical_Trials_section and check what you think of their further request? Cheers,  Chzz  ►  04:10, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Hello, thank you for creating a readable draft. I have proposed some minor modifications and added citations where needed on the Cervarix talk page.Maitri Shah, PharmD, GSK (talk) 19:41, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Pharyngitis

I have attempted to address your concerns. [33] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:01, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Provided further refs. Tonsillitis is a subtype of pharyngitis per the National Library of Medicine [34] and another review I have provided. That is all. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:51, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Comments

A 2010 Cochrane review has just come out and wondering if you could comment further [35] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:09, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Welcome to WP:Hospitals!

I noticed the good work you did with Infobox Hospitals. We've made a few upgrades, and there are now a few instructions and a helipad option. Good to see you around, and thanks for the support! Ng.j (talk) 07:44, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Allopathy and its Difference with Modern Scientific Medicine : Request to join the discussion

I came across your userpage and thought that I could try to involve you into the discussion regarding my attempts to radically modify the article on Allopathic medicine where my edit as available at this link, had been reverted. The discussion is available at the respective talk page. I had referenced my edits so that the information that might not be known to many, can be verified. I seek the improvisation of this article (along with the related ones) and would like a healthy discussion to be re-initiated in order to improve the article. I would be glad if you show your experienced intervention/involvement. Diptanshu^Talk 15:05, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Viruses is back

Hello, We at WikiProject Viruses noticed that you used to be a participant of the project before the project went inactive. We would like to take this opportunity to invite you to become a participant of WikiProject Viruses again. We believe that viruses are an extremely important part of an encyclopedia, and that is why we need you! Our new project coordinator is Thomas888b (talk · contribs).
We hope you seriously consider our invitation. See you there. If you are interested in joining our crew again, please place a notice on Our Talkpage, or you will be removed from our participants list.

Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of WikiProject Viruses at 21:20, 24 February 2011 (UTC).

Medication box

Wondering about dividing the medication box into two. One that is clinical and one that deal with chemistry, etc. I see you worked alot on the previous one thus would appreciate your comments. [36] --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:11, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Proposed Image Deletion

A deletion discussion has just been created at Category talk:Unclassified Chemical Structures, which may involve one or more orphaned chemical structures, that has you user name in the upload history. Please feel free to add your comments.  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 22:51, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:British National Formulary frontcover.jpg

⚠

Thanks for uploading File:British National Formulary frontcover.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 13:07, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:BNFc2008 frontcover.png

⚠

Thanks for uploading File:BNFc2008 frontcover.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 15:15, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Hello

Just a note to say that I've missed seeing you the last few months. I hope all is well. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:56, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

ELs and related issues

Please take note of a discussion ("Wikipedia and its relationship to the outside world") about medical ELs and related issues. You may want to follow the links provided to learn more if you are so inclined. Thank you in advance. I'm not looking for more comments, as there have been many already, but you're welcome to add yours if you want to. Presto54 (talk) 04:27, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Psilocybin

Hi Davidruben, thanks for your comments about the psilocybin article. I have worked on the "Medical research" section (good rename, BTW; I agree in retrospect that the former section title was inappropriate), and was hoping you might take another look to see if I've satisfactorily addressed the deficiencies you noted before. Sasata (talk) 22:31, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

All files in category Unclassified Chemical Structures listed for deletion

One or more of the files that you uploaded or altered has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it/them not being deleted. Thank you.

Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of MGA73 (talk) at 17:48, 28 November 2011 (UTC).

Disambiguation link notification

Hi. When you recently edited SGR 1806-20, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Quadrillion (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 10:19, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

MSU Interview

Dear Davidruben,

My name is Jonathan Obar user:Jaobar, I'm a professor in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University and a Teaching Fellow with the Wikimedia Foundation's Education Program. This semester I've been running a little experiment at MSU, a class where we teach students about becoming Wikipedia administrators. Not a lot is known about your community, and our students (who are fascinated by wiki-culture by the way!) want to learn how you do what you do, and why you do it. A while back I proposed this idea (the class) to the communityHERE, where it was met mainly with positive feedback. Anyhow, I'd like my students to speak with a few administrators to get a sense of admin experiences, training, motivations, likes, dislikes, etc. We were wondering if you'd be interested in speaking with one of our students.

So a few things about the interviews:

• Interviews will last between 15 and 30 minutes.
• Interviews can be conducted over skype (preferred), IRC or email. (You choose the form of communication based upon your comfort level, time, etc.)
• All interviews will be completely anonymous, meaning that you (real name and/or pseudonym) will never be identified in any of our materials, unless you give the interviewer permission to do so.
• All interviews will be completely voluntary. You are under no obligation to say yes to an interview, and can say no and stop or leave the interview at any time.
• The entire interview process is being overseen by MSU's institutional review board (ethics review). This means that all questions have been approved by the university and all students have been trained how to conduct interviews ethically and properly.

Bottom line is that we really need your help, and would really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. If interested, please send me an email at obar@msu.edu (to maintain anonymity) and I will add your name to my offline contact list. If you feel comfortable doing so, you can post your nameHERE instead.

If you have questions or concerns at any time, feel free to email me at obar@msu.edu. I will be more than happy to speak with you.

Thanks in advance for your help. We have a lot to learn from you.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Obar --Jaobar (talk) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chlopeck (talk • contribs) 14:09, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikiproject Virus Revival

You have previously shown an interest in Wikiproject Viruses by adding your name to our List of Participants. We are currently reviving the project, and would be grateful if you could indicate whether you are still interested in contributing or not on our Talk Page. You do not need to have expertise in virology to contribute to our project, as we welcome people with any degree of knowledge of the subject.
Thank you.

Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of WikiProject Viruses at 17:28, 15 February 2012 (UTC).

Please disambiguate EMIS to Egton Medical Information Systems

I did not dare to change your user page myself... EMIS does no longer redirect to Egton Medical Information Systems, but became a disambiguation page. I changed the links in regular articles. --L.Willms (talk) 19:34, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for September 24

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Azam Ali, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Brian Tyler (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 11:37, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

New medical organization

Hi

I'm contacting you because, as a participant at Wikiproject Medicine, you may be interested in a new multinational non-profit organization we're forming at m:Wikimedia Medicine. Even if you don't want to be actively involved, any ideas you may have about our structure and aims would be very welcome on the project's talk page.

Our purpose is to help improve the range and quality of free online medical content, and we'll be working with like-minded organizations, such as the World Health Organization, professional and scholarly societies, medical schools, governments and NGOs - including Translators Without Borders.

Hope to see you there! --Anthonyhcole (talk) 07:21, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Library now offering accounts from Cochrane Collaboration (sign up!)

Cochrane Collaboration is an independent medical nonprofit organization consisting of over 28,000 volunteers in more than 100 countries. The collaboration was formed to organize medical scholarship in a systematic way in the interests of evidence-based research: the group conducts systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials of health-care interventions, which it then publishes in the Cochrane Library.

Cochrane has generously agreed to give free, full-access accounts to 100 medical editors. Individual access would otherwise cost between $300 and $800 per account. Thank you Cochrane!

If you are stil active as a medical editor, come and sign up :)

Cheers, Ocaasi ^{t | c} 20:01, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Library now offering accounts from Cochrane Collaboration (sign up!)

The Wikipedia Library gets Wikipedia editors free access to reliable sources that are behind paywalls. Because you are signed on as a medical editor, I thought you'd want to know about our most recent donation from Cochrane Collaboration.

• Cochrane Collaboration is an independent medical nonprofit organization that conducts systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials of health-care interventions, which it then publishes in the Cochrane Library.
• Cochrane has generously agreed to give free, full-access accounts to 100 medical editors. Individual access would otherwise cost between $300 and $800 per account.
• If you are still active as a medical editor, come and sign up :)

Cheers, Ocaasi ^{t | c} 20:32, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

DHEA VS 7 Keto DHEA

Please tell me your opinion of 7 Keto DHEA suplemtation with Estrogen related Breast Cancer. I have been reading that 7 Keto DHEA does not affect the production of estrogen as Dhea does. Thank you. – — ° ″ ′ ≈ ≠ ≤ ≥ ± − × ÷ ← → · § 1shakenbake1 (talk) 20:07, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Onychomycosis article

Can you improve the Onychomicosis article with this new information from "volume 13 - number 7 - July 2013" Nature Medicine ?

http://www.readcube.com/articles/10.1038/nm0713-794

I mean the pharmacological part.

38% cure rate found with a 12-week course of the oral medication terbinafine.

New drug Efinaconazole in two phase 3 trials, published in the April issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology (68, 600–608, 2013), the drug yielded complete cure rates of 17.8% and 15.2%

etc... I don't know how to do it

lilopiglet@gmail.com

79.152.120.66 (talk) 06:35, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Aspergillosis

Hi, I'm leaving a message as you were a previous contributor to the page on aspergillosis. I'm currently starting an effort to revamp and expand that article. If you'd like to join in, please join us at the talk page! Thanks :) --—Cyclonenim | Chat  10:30, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

requesting help with article

hey how are you i was hoping i could reach out to you about the creating of or restoring the article sugaspott which was deleted some time ago

i intend to work on it and gather a general consensus of approval before publishing it

since the time it was deleted, sources that where not available to show notability have slowly emerged over the internet and i suppose i figured maybe i can request the making of the article which i have already done and now also looking for editors who may feel like they could help. Since the original articles' deletion, i came to terms with the fact that in the greater interests of the bigger picture the right thing was done, i somehow now need help to do the same thing the right way

thanks

any help would be appreciated and i will be grateful for

the article in question is sugaspott

Wikispott (talk) 14:10, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

An RfC that you may be interested in...

As one of the previous contributors to {{Infobox film}} or as one of the commenters on it's talk page, I would like to inform you that there has been a RfC started on the talk page as to implementation of previously deprecated parameters. Your comments and thoughts on the matter would be welcomed. Happy editing!

This message was sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(t • e • c)} 18:27, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Template:Infobox Proposal

A tag has been placed on Template:Infobox Proposal requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section T3 of the criteria for speedy deletion because it is an unused duplicate of another template, or a hard-coded instance of another template. After seven days, if it is still unused and the speedy deletion tag has not been removed, the template will be deleted.

If the template is not actually the same as the other template noted, please feel free to remove the speedy deletion tag and please consider putting a note on the template's page explaining how this one is different so as to avoid any future mistakes (<noinclude>{{substituted}}</noinclude>).

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page's talk page, where you can explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, and you wish to retrieve the deleted material for future reference or improvement, you can place a request here. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:00, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Request for comment

Hello there, a proposal regarding pre-adminship review has been raised at Village pump by Anna Frodesiak. Your comments here is very much appreciated. Many thanks. Jim Carter through MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:46, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

The Pulse (WP:MED newsletter) June 2014

The first edition of The Pulse has been released. The Pulse will be a regular newsletter documenting the goings-on at WPMED, including ongoing collaborations, discussions, articles, and each edition will have a special focus. That newsletter is here.

The newsletter has been sent to the talk pages of WP:MED members bearing the {{User WPMed}} template. To opt-out, please leave a message here or simply remove your name from the mailing list. Because this is the first issue, we are still finding out feet. Things like the layout and content may change in subsequent editions. Please let us know what you think, and if you have any ideas for the future, by leaving a message here.

Posted by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:24, 5 June 2014 (UTC) on behalf of WikiProject Medicine.

BMJ offering 25 free accounts to Wikipedia medical editors

Neat news: BMJ is offering 25 free, full-access accounts to their prestigious medical journal through The Wikipedia Library and Wiki Project Med Foundation (like we did with Cochrane). Please sign up this week: Wikipedia:BMJ --Cheers, Ocaasi via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:14, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Medical Translation Newsletter

Wikiproject Medicine; Translation Taskforce

Medical Translation Newsletter
Issue 1, June/July 2014
by CFCF, Doc James

sign up for monthly delivery

This is the first of a series of newsletters for Wikiproject Medicine's Translation Task Force. Our goal is to make all the medical knowledge on Wikipedia available to the world, in the language of your choice.

note: you will not receive future editions of this newsletter unless you *sign up*; you received this version because you identify as a member of WikiProject Medicine

Spotlight - Simplified article translation

---

Wikiproject Medicine started translating simplified articles in February 2014. We now have 45 simplified articles ready for translation, of which the first on African trypanosomiasis or sleeping sickness has been translated into 46 out of ~100 languages. This list does not include the 33 additional articles that are available in both full and simple versions.

Our goal is to eventually translate 1,000 simplified articles. This includes:

• WHO's list of Essential Medicines[37]
• Neglected tropical diseases[38]
• Key diseases for medical subspecialties like: oncology, emergency medicine (list), anatomy, internal medicine, surgery, etc.

We are looking for subject area leads to both create articles and recruit further editors. We need people with basic medical knowledge who are willing to help out. This includes to write, translate and especially integrate medical articles.

What's happening?

---

IEG grant

CFCF - "IEG beneficiary" and editor of this newsletter.

I've (CFCF) taken on the role of community organizer for this project, and will be working with this until December. The goals and timeline can be found here, and are focused on getting the project on a firm footing and to enable me to work near full-time over the summer, and part-time during the rest of the year. This means I will be available for questions and ideas, and you can best reach me by mail or on my talk page.

Wikimania 2014

For those going to London in a month's time (or those already nearby) there will be at least one event for all medical editors, on Thursday August 7th. See the event page, which also summarizes medicine-related presentations in the main conference. Please pass the word on to your local medical editors.

Integration progress

There has previously been some resistance against translation into certain languages with strong Wikipedia presence, such as Dutch, Polish, and Swedish.
What was found is that thre is hardly any negative opinion about the the project itself; and any such critique has focused on the ways that articles have being integrated. For an article to be usefully translated into a target-Wiki it needs to be properly Wiki-linked, carry proper citations and use the formatting of the chosen target language as well as being properly proof-read. Certain large Wikis such as the Polish and Dutch Wikis have strong traditions of medical content, with their own editorial system, own templates and different ideas about what constitutes a good medical article. For example, there are not MEDRS (Polish,German,Romanian,Persian) guidelines present on other Wikis, and some Wikis have a stronger background of country-specific content.

• Swedish
  Translation into Swedish has been difficult in part because of the amount of free, high quality sources out there already: patient info, for professionals. The same can be said for English, but has really given us all the more reason to try and create an unbiased and free encyclopedia of medical content. We want Wikipedia to act as an alternative to commercial sources, and preferably a really good one at that.
  Through extensive collaborative work and by respecting links and Sweden specific content the last unintegrated Swedish translation went live in May.
• Dutch
  Dutch translation carries with it special difficulties, in part due to the premises in which the Dutch Wikipedia is built upon. There is great respect for what previous editors have created, and deleting or replacing old content can be frowned upon. In spite of this there are success stories: Anafylaxie.
• Polish
  Translation and integration into Polish also comes with its own unique set of challenges. The Polish Wikipedia has long been independent and works very hard to create high quality contentfor Polish audience. Previous translation trouble has lead to use of unique templates with unique formatting, not least among citations. Add to this that the Polish Wikipedia does not allow template redirects and a large body of work is required for each article.
  (This is somewhat alleviated by a commissioned Template bot - to be released). - List of articles for integration
• Arabic
  The Arabic Wikipedia community has been informed of the efforts to integrate content through both the general talk-page as well as through one of the major Arabic Wikipedia facebook-groups: مجتمع ويكيبيديا العربي, something that has been heralded with great enthusiasm.

Integration guides

Integration is the next step after any translation. Despite this it is by no means trivial, and it comes with its own hardships and challenges. Previously each new integrator has needed to dive into the fray with little help from previous integrations. Therefore we are creating guides for specific Wikis that make integration simple and straightforward, with guides for specific languages, and for integrating on small Wikis.

Instructions on how to integrate an article may be found here [39]

News in short

---

To come

• Medical editor census - Medical editors on different Wikis have been without proper means of communication. A preliminary list of projects is available here.
• Proofreading drives

Further reading

• Translators Without Borders
• Healthcare information for all by 2015, a global campaign

Thanks for reading! To receive a monthly talk page update about new issues of the Medical Translation Newsletter, please add your name to the subscriber's list. To suggest items for the next issue, please contact the editor, CFCF (talk · contribs) at Wikipedia:Wikiproject Medicine/Translation Taskforce/Newsletter/Suggestions.
Want to help out manage the newsletter? Get in touch with me CFCF (talk · contribs)
For the newsletter from Wikiproject Medicine, see The Pulse
If you are receiving this newsletter without having signed up, it is because you have signed up as a member of the Translation Taskforce, or Wiki Project Med on meta. 22:32, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

NCGS

Given your participation on the Talk page this summer, you might be interested in the discussion on the Talk page of "Gluten sensitivity" relating to an "umbrella" article for all gluten-related disorders and/or article on non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS). --Chris Howard (talk) 20:21, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Peer review invitation

Hi David,

I am editor-in-chief of an under-development project in Wikiversity called Wikiversity Journal of Medicine (more information at Wikiversity Journal of Medicine/About).

I'd very much appreciate if you did a peer review of an article that was recently submitted to this journal by Doc James:

• Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder

This is essentially a shortened version of the Wikipedia article on that subject, and in own words.

The peer review is preferably written in the corresponding talk page, and should include a declaration of any conflicts of interests. In this case it may include that you and Doc James have worked together in Wikipedia on other projects. Comments should be constructive, include both strengths and areas for improvement, and be referenced whenever possible. Otherwise, the journal has no strict rules regarding the structure and length of a peer review. Still, more guidelines for peer reviewers can be found at: Wikiversity Journal of Medicine/Peer reviewers.

We prefer peer reviews to be returned within 3 weeks, and appreciate in any case a reply regarding whether you are interested or not in this contribution.

Best regards,

Mikael Häggström (talk) 12:08, 22 June 2015 (UTC)