Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/HIV

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[edit] HIV

Forgive my naivety in this, first time thing for me. I encountered this article by chance a few days ago and have read it with great interest. In my opinion, this article appears to be well written and meets the criteria of a Featured Article. Nominate and support. Yanksox 00:01, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. This is a very good article, but imho a few points remain before I can support it.
  • The "Alternative theories" is kinda messed up and should be expanded on what those theories are and so on. Basically, some (sourced and NPOV) content should be moved from child article to expand a bit this section.

DO NOT OPEN THAT HORNETS NEST. Leave whats there on alternative theories, it has its own article. Trust me. I've seen this unfold a billion times over at AIDS, it ain't pretty. It made featured article with pretty much the same blurb as this one anyhow. JoeSmack ^Talk 04:40, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Agree as well, giving more space to fringe theories provides them undue weight and violates NPOV. Christopher Parham (talk) 16:59, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Agree. Leave the pseudoscience to its own article, the info presented here is more than sufficient and is well cited. --Bob 17:02, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

• • Lists are ugly. As such, the "The declaration of AIDS" section is messy and should be converted to prose.
  • The prose looks a bit choppy, as there are some short paragraphs and sections that could benefit from mergers.

Otherwise, it is very nice and well-sourced! :) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 00:13, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

• Object; not enough citations. See the sections titled "HIV test", "Symptoms of early infection", "Clinical latency", "Primary infection", "Genetic variability", and perhaps most crucially, "Structure and genome". All of these sections have significant amounts of unsourced text. --Spangineer^es (háblame) 13:16, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment How many citations do we want? One for every sentence? If that is what we want I would be happy to furnish the article with over 400 references. Would that be enough? --Bob 17:02, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Spangineer - there are some important cites that are needed in some key places. Bob, let's assume good faith; this is afterall a critique of an article for FA. AIDS, an FA with a lot of common ground, has over 110 references and this has a little under 70. In many ways, explaining the article HIV in this kind of detail should warrant even more scientific referencing. We don't need 400 cites, but more is better i feel at this point. JoeSmack ^Talk 17:35, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Addressed. Now has almost 100 references and growing. --Bob 00:54, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - the "Declaration of AIDS" section seems oddly named. What is meant by "declaration"? It's not a term I've ever heard before. The phrase generally used is "progression to AIDS", which can happen with or without a "declaration". If you are wanting to tie the progression to AIDS to a set of indicating features or to an official diagnosis, perhaps a more correct header would be "Clinical progression to AIDS", but I would be reluctant to use that, as the word "clinical" has been used in two previous headers. It needs a stronger paragraph to explain the significance of the points that follow. I think that instead of starting with "AIDS is the most severe manifestation...." it would follow on from the previous section more smoothly if it started with something like "When the CD4+ T cell count drops to below 200 cells per µL.... a patient is considered to have progressed to AIDS". Followed by the symptoms, which should be and can be converted into prose. On a lighter note, the word "classical" is totally wrong unless you're talking about music. I haven't read the whole article, but this just kind of jumped out at me as being extremely jarring. Rossrs 14:01, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Reply. The term declaration of AIDS is a WHO and UNAIDS thing. Take it up with them. --Bob 17:02, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

"Take it up with them"? Well, that's helpful. Perhaps you could show me an example where it's used in this context and I'll stand corrected. A google search should show it up pretty easily if that's the case but it doesn't. Every example I can find is about some "declaration" of policy in dealing with the issue, but that's not the context in which it's used in the article. Rossrs 22:21, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Look up the First Half-yearly Report 1999, report number 61. Its use is prevalent in this document issued by WHO, UNAIDS and the EU Collaborating Centre on AIDS. --Bob 15:40, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I seem to have mislaid my copy of First Half-yearly Report 1999, report number 61. It's good that you were able to find a supporting document, even though you had to go back seven years to find one. Rossrs 00:07, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

• Support. Accurate and well-sourced. --Bob 17:02, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
• Object This article needs a lot of work. An article on a medical condition should be extensively cited; there are too many statements with no cite. The prose is also weak, example: "However, the time between initial infection and the development of detectable antibodies against HIV can vary. This is called the window period. This is why it can take 6-12 months to seroconvert and test positive." Stubby sentencs, not compelling or brilliant, and that section isn't referenced. Sandy 02:10, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - I disagree with the assertion that there's a higher bar for number of citations when it comes to scientific or medical articles. In general, such articles will be drawing from a more narrowly focused pool of currently authoritative consensus, rather than the somewhat stickier problem of citing a popular culture or historical article, for example. I would expect that fewer unique citations would actually be the norm in such articles. As for "compelling or brilliant", I'm not sure that that should be the goal of prose in an encyclopedia. I would suggest that the goal should be, "informative and unambiguous." That said, the bit that you quoted did sound a bit stilted, and could probably be bent into a more pleasing shape without losing anything important. -Harmil 02:56, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
• Object - on the basis of a significant amount of information being inadequately cited, inconsistency in writing style that suggests different sections were written by different authors, badly structured sections and awkward style. It seems to be accurate but needs a lot of work. Examples:

1. Symptoms of early infection seems to suggest that symptoms spontaneously manifest themselves and this is followed/accompanied by a drop in T Cells. It should be noted that the drop in T Cells is more of the "trigger" than the other way around, and that drop in T Cells can often be asymptomatic. Therefore the drop in T Cells should be mentioned first, then followed by a description of some of the symptoms that may follow or coincide. The paragraph as written suggests a sequence, or "cause/effect" that is not quite accurate. Also if 500 CD4 is to be used as a measure it needs to be cited.
2. Declaration of AIDS - I think the header is unclear in its meaning, and I don't think that it's the right term. (I think "progression to AIDS" is more commonly used). I have not been able to find anything in websites for UNAIDS or WHO, other sites such as www.thebody.com or even our articles such as AIDS that use the word "declaration" in this sense. I could be wrong on this and if I am would appreciate some politely enlightening me. *Agree to disagree on the heading* Even so, the section consists of bullet points which should be converted into prose. And while doing so the word "classical" needs to be replaced with something a little more gramatically correct such as "typical".
3. Unsourced text. There is a lot needing to be sourced, although I think what is written is accurate. The entire structure and genome section is unsourced. *a lot of sourcing has since been done* There are examples throughout the article. One that particularly bothers me is "AIDS is the most severe manifestation of infection with HIV and occurs when the CD4+ T cell count drops to below 200 cells per µL." which is essentially a "definition of AIDS". OK, whose definition? Who says that 200 cells is the dividing line? This is crucial, especially given that the definition of AIDS based on CD4+ T Cell count has changed a couple of times in the last 20 years.
4. Treatment has a link "as measured by a blood test called the viral load". Now, the blood test is not called "the viral load". The term "viral load" is used in passing in both HIV and HIV test without being explained. It only needs a few words or a sentence to explain it, but it shouldn't be assumed that people who may not know much about the subject won't be confused by the term. Subsequent edits have changed the comment of post-exposure prophylaxis from "thought to reduce the risk" to a "known method of prevention", which is far less accurate. I have rewritten this sentence to return it to its original meaning. Rossrs 09:47, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
5. Non medical prose can be simplified in some places for ease of reading. Example from lead paragraph "Methods of transmission can come in the form of" is really an awkward way of saying "HIV can be transmitted by". Another awkward one: "UNAIDS believes that it is premature to recommend male circumcision services as part of HIV prevention programs" - is "services" supposed to be "serves"? or is "services" a noun such as "clinic"? Why not just simplify it and say "UNAIDS does not endorse the view that male circumcision reduces the risk of HIV transmission".
6. loquial phrasing such as "scientific fallout" should be avoided, as should the overuse of (brackets) for text that can easily be written into the sentence, and abbreviations such as "etc".
7. Some sentences and sections are written in a very different style to the bulk of the article and are therefore jarring. While correct in the message they convey, the style is out of step to the overall tone of the article. Examples "Even if patients go to their doctors or a hospital, they will often be misdiagnosed as having one of the more common infectious diseases with the same symptoms." And "Many people are unaware that they are infected with HIV" places the emphasis on the wrong point and "many" is a very loose term. It would be more correct to say "Because people infected with HIV can remain asymptomatic for a period of time, some remain unaware that they are infected until their blood is tested for antibodies or they develop symptoms". The whole HIV test section is stubby in style, as noted by Sandy - it badly needs to be rewritten and could afford to be expanded just slightly.
8. "AIDS which is identified on the basis of certain infections, an HIV test and a CD4+ T cell count". The clinical course of the infection section starts off about the progression of the virus and then ends with this phrase which is entirely centred around diagnosis. The section is discussing the progression of infection and this occurs with or without diagnosis so to throw a HIV test/diagnosis into the mix at this point is wrong. This section is talking just about the virus and should stick to the characteristics of AIDS and leave the diagnosis elsewhere. Under HIV test would be most appropriate. If not, the paragraph needs to be rewritten so that the clinical course of the HIV and the medical diagnosis are two different points. Rossrs 14:32, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Implement your proposed changes instead of sitting on your hands. --Bob 15:12, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Try to avoid being rude. That's twice now. I'm under no obligation to make these edits. It is the responsibility of the nominator to do so. I've spent a considerable amount of my time reviewing this article, and stating my opinions. During this time I was not sitting on my hands. Rossrs 15:24, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

So rather than do anything about my objections, you've added 21 points that need citing to Kylie Minogue, an article that I nominated for featured article status, and which I mention on my user page. I can't help but feel that this is a bad faith action on your part. Looking at your edit history you don't seem to have edited pop culture articles in the recent past, and this comes minutes after I'd objected here. The coincidental timing is stunning. I'm not interested in playing games with you. Don't make edits such as this just to MAKE A POINT! Rossrs 15:57, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I contributed to Kylie Minogue 1 August 2006. I waited a month for changes to be implemented and nothing was done. If you think this is a reflection on yourself, then you hold yourself in too high a regard. --Bob 16:41, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

So you did. Well, I didn't go back far enough and that is my error. I'll save my comments for Talk:Kylie Minogue. I don't really understand why you've reacted so negatively to my comments here. I suggest that it is you that holds himself in too high a regard. The reason I spent so much time reviewing and commenting was because I thought the article was very good and I wanted the nomination to succeed. I know from experience that when you get too close to an article it's hard to see inconsistencies in grammar or ambiguous wording that other people might see, and all I was trying to do was identify those areas so that they could be fixed. I also get annoyed by objections that are vague or half-hearted or unclear because they are very hard to respond to, so in good faith, I attempted to be clear and thorough. Remember this is supposed to be a collaborative process, but it's one that I'll now bow out of. Good luck with the nomination. Rossrs 00:07, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. I came across this article a few weeks ago after listening to an hour-long radio program on HIV/AIDS, (w/ Anthony Fauci). I then went to the article, thinking maybe I could add something, but the article covered all key points very well. The referencing was also pretty good, though with a medical topic such as this, it's important to cite all key points, facts and figures. I'm close to supporting, but would like to see above objections addressed. (I notice that some have already been addressed) Also, the tone of rhetoric here on the FAC page is troublesome. Users such as Sandy tend to hang out on the FAC page, making suggestions. But, with the volume of FAC nominations, it's unreasonable to expect people to address their own objections. I will watch over the article and this FAC page for the next few days. If objections are addressed (with civility), I will return with a vote of support. --Aude (talk contribs) 00:31, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • A review of Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Medicine-related articles) might be helpful, and a comparison to a recent medical FA, Cystic fibrosis. WikiProject Medicine has editors who may help with review. Sandy 01:03, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Support. Since many of the objections relating to references were raised last Thursday, the referencing has improved significantly. As well, the selection of references hits key scientific papers that have been published in well-respected peer reviewed scientific journals such as Science, N. Engl. J. Med, as well as more specialized journals. Furthermore, I have come across "GR Campbell" many times in the scientific literature, who I assume is the same person here, and his expertise shows nicely in this article. In some of the comments above, I think maybe he's showing some frustration with Wikipedia. I think maybe that touches on some broader issues for Wikipedia[1], and I think it's best to separate them from the task of evaluating the article. Now, I'm not sure I agree with comparing HIV with Cystic fibrosis, as the former is about a virus and the latter a disease or condition. AIDS would be the comparable disease or condition. To me, discussing the virus that causes AIDS, requires a step-up with including some more technical details in order to cover the topic comprehensively, without neglecting major facts and details. Medicine is not my area of expertise, yet I had no trouble at all with the level of technical details; Rather, I find the explanations quite good and understandable. All in all, I only took notice of this article (as a reader) when I found it and saw how good it was. --Aude (talk contribs as tagcloud) 03:43, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

• Support It is very thorough and detailed. It covers a very popular issue in today's society. It has plenty of length but isn't banal. It has good sources and useful charts. Definitely worthy of being featured. oco

• Object—1a. Here are examples just from the lead, which you'd expect to be the showcase of the article.
  • "Known as" occurs three times in the opening sentence.
  • "As CD4+ T cells are required for proper functioning of the immune system, when enough of them have been destroyed by HIV it compromises the immune system, leading to AIDS." "Because" would avoid the momentary ambiguity of "as". Insert "the" before "functioning". "It compromises" ends up being clumsy here—what does "it" refer to, anyway? The proper function of the immune system, HIV? As a rule, the referent should be crystal clear. Reword this sentence.
  • "HIV also directly attacks organs such as the kidneys, heart and brain, leading to acute renal failure, cardiomyopathy, dementia and encephalopathy." Get rid of the redundant "also". "Leading to" indicates that all of the listed complications are inevitable. What you mean is "which can lead to".
  • "Many of the problems faced by people infected with HIV result from failure of the immune system to protect from opportunistic infections and cancers." Too many scientists use this kind of telegram language. "The" failure. "To protect" whom? Better to reword, perhaps as "to offer protection from". "The" is missing from quite a few nominal groups throughout the article.
  • "Infection with HIV" better as "HIV infection".
  • "In the developed world transmission through the therapeutic use of infected blood or blood products has largely been eliminated where blood products are screened routinely for the presence of HIV." The "where" clause needs to be located properly: "In the developed world, where blodd products are screened ...".
  • The em dash in the last paragraph should be an en dash: looks very odd.
  • "Of which more than 570,000 were children". Aren't they people? ("Of whom").
  • "Current estimates state that". No, "are", not "state".
  • Remove "routine".
  • You haven't made the disctinction between HIV infection and AIDS clear, although both of these terms appear in the lead. Most people don't understand this important distinction.

The writing is sub-professional, such that nearly every sentence requires editing. The whole article needs thorough copy-editing to reach FA standards. In addition, I note that there have been aggressive responses above, and assumptions that reviewers should directly edit the article, which is certainly not the case. This review process relies on positive responses by contributors. Tony 10:08, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. You have taken the time to post proposed changes here on this page and I am sure all are grateful, however, would it not have saved time to implement them directly in the article instead of typing them here and waiting for someone else to do it? Isn't Wikipedia about being bold and editing articles that need it? I know that when I see an article which needs changes (especially when it is on review) I implement the required changes, it saves time and makes Wikipedia better, faster. --Bob 15:21, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

No. Reviewers here are under no obligation to directly edit FACs. My points were not a hit list of what needs to be edited to satisfy Criterion 1a; it was an example of the density of problems in the whole text, and supports my assertion that thorough copy-editing is required throughout. Tony 01:20, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, that is a weakness in the system that needs to be addressed --Bob 00:34, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

The system has evolved that way on purpose. This is not a working bee to edit your article up to FA standard, but a review process to help you do that, and to judge whether it should be promoted at the end. You've already been rude to one reviewer above on this very issue; please realise that reviewers are under no obligation to edit the articles they review. That is your job. I'd be networking right now to find someone else to run through the text with fresh eyes.Tony 01:06, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I didn't put this article up for FA review, so it is NOT MY JOB'. However, as it is here, one might as well make the most of it. Reviewers may not be under any obligation to do anything, but this is Wikipedia, and I was under the impression that if you think an article needs editing, you should BE BOLD and do it. I can change font colours as well... --Bob 01:14, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

• Weak Object: I have to agree with Tony here; the prose needs work. Repetition, like he said, needs to be addressed (three "highly"s in the first three lines of the Treatment section, in one instance, although two of them may have to be kept inevitably). As well, a lot of the copyediting work we need is grammatical; there is an inconsistency with respect to the existence of serial commas throughout the article that emphasizes the fact that it hasn't been sifted through enough, even in the lead. The content looks promising, but some thorough copyediting is definitely necessary. --DanielNuyu 08:42, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

This has been carried out by TimVickers --Bob 00:34, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Comments Overall, excellent and of FA quality. The prose is occasionally over-technical, but this is probably inescapable with this subject. I tried to generalise the lead and simplify this a little without losing content.

• I don't think the images of the pills add anything. I would suggest either putting in the structures of the drugs, or (if you prefer) I could generate an image of one of these drugs bound to a target, such as the HIV protease.

I added those pictures to both AIDS and HIV. I sorta hashed it out on the Talk:AIDS, but basically the reason i put them in was to show that they were pills....

when i first heard that HAART was a drug cocktail, i thought it would look like a martini:

when i first hear 'non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor', i thought of some fancy injection:

i don't really consider myself naive or anything, but i think that showing that these fancy drugs with fancy names and classes are simply pills is important. colors and shapes change, and i think we all sorta get that, so i don't think thats a place for worry there. i was trying to make this complicated issue a little more transparent, thats all. the text doesn't really convey this, and anyways i think even if it took the time/space to do so, it'd be less taxing (on the article and the reader) to just simply go with these small images. JoeSmack ^Talk 17:43, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

What about doing both and covering all your audience? A first image of a pill and a second image of the structure of the drug inside that pill. Having two essentially identical images adds little to the article. TimVickers 17:49, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

One pill, one structure now. --Bob 00:34, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

• No mention of how HIV-2 differs from HIV-1 in the Structure and Genome section. Perhaps one sentence on this at the beginning of the section?

I've added a little on this (but not at the beginning) --Bob 00:34, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

• I don't understand this sentence. "HIV-1 and HIV-2 appear to package their RNA differently; HIV-1 will bind to any appropriate RNA whereas HIV-2 will preferentially bind to the mRNA which was used to create the Gag protein itself."
• I changed this sentence - changes in brackets. "This recombination happens when a cell is simultaneously infected by two different strains of HIV and [two] one RNA transcript[s] from two different viral strains are packaged into the same virion particle." If this is wrong I apologise. TimVickers 17:32, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I reworded it to make it (possibly) clearer. --Bob 00:34, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Good changes: Support. TimVickers 20:33, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

• Further comment on 1a. At this stage, I don't want to be able to pick out little problems at random, such as:
  • "three main transmission routes of HIV have been identified"—"For" would be more comfortable than "of" here, although not mandatory.
  • "Widely-accepted"—No hyphen after -ly words.
  • "Sexual transmission occurs when there is contact between sexual secretions of one partner with the rectal, genital or oral mucous membranes of another." No, "the sexual secretions". "Partner ... another" isn't right; why not just "contact with the sexual secretions of another person's rectal, genital or oral mucous membranes."? But there's a scientific problem here: we know that there can be contact with these membranes without transmission, or at least without a contraction of the disease—didn't one study show that only one in 25 penis/vagina interactions results in transmission? (I draw on my general knowledge, so I may have the figure wrong, but not the principle. If contact/transmission ratios are not mentioned in the article, they probably should be.) The upshot is that you need "can occur" rather than "occurs".
  • "This transmission route can account for infections in intravenous drug users, hemophiliacs and recipients of blood transfusions (though most transfusions are checked for HIV in the developed world)"—Although is slightly preferred in formal registers, but the word shouldn't appear here, because the parenthetical clause doesn't contradict the previous statement: it merely adds to it. Better to avoid parentheses where possible, because they make for a less smooth reading experience.

Again, these are examples, not the end of the story. Please find a good copy-editor to run through the whole text. If you really can't find one, ask me and I'll suggest someone (not here, though). Tony 01:24, 14 September 2006 (UTC)