Wikipedia:WikiProject Health controversies

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A project has been formed to better organize information in articles related to Health controversies. This page and its subpages contain suggestions for enhancing such articles; it is hoped that this project will help to focus the efforts on these topics. If you would like to help, please inquire on the talk page and see the to-do list there. For more information on WikiProjects, please see Wikipedia:WikiProjects and Wikipedia:WikiProject best practices.

Contents 1 Title 2 Initiation 2.1 Purpose of project 3 Scope 3.1 Background 3.2 The imperative 3.3 Why a project? 3.4 What would the project include? 3.5 What this project won't accomplish 4 Initial positions (subject to continuous change) 4.1 How we characterize a controversy without engaging in it 4.2 How we deal with majority, minority, and fringe points of view 4.3 How we avoid rhetorical fallacies creeping in, keeping each other honest 4.4 How we differentiate among types of controversies, i.e., ethical, medical, philosophical, etc. 4.5 What it means to "write for the enemy" on these issues 4.6 How we characterize and use sources and other resources 4.7 How we distinguish among the relevant sources, of which there are many in this field 4.8 Application of no original research 4.9 How to hold each other to high standards in the service of better articles, rather than engaging in personal attacks and other bad behavior 4.10 How we deal consistently with certain attributes that are characteristic of this field 5 Parentage 6 Descendant WikiProjects 7 Similar WikiProjects 8 Related WikiProjects 9 Related Wikiportals 10 Related Collaborations 11 Related notice boards 12 Related groups of Wikipedians 13 Related pages in Sister projects 13.1 Sister Project Searches 14 Participants 15 Structure 16 Hierarchy definition 17 Goals 18 Projects 19 Tasks 20 Adopt an article 21 General strategy and discussion forums 22 Infoboxes 23 Templates 23.1 Other templates 24 Categories 25 Lists 26 Articles 26.1 Wikipedia articles on {{{Health controversies}}} 26.2 Wikipedia namespace and Meta-Wiki articles on {{{Health controversies}}} 26.3 New Wikipedia articles related to {{{Health controversies}}} 26.4 Did you know? 26.5 Article improvement drive 26.6 Collaboration of the week 26.7 Peer review 26.8 Featured articles 26.8.1 Featured article candidates 26.9 Featured pictures 26.9.1 Featured picture candidates 26.10 Featured lists 26.10.1 Featured list candidates 27 Article series box

[edit] Title

WikiProject on Health controversies

[edit] Initiation

[edit] Purpose of project

The purpose of the Health controversies project is to create a common ground for the diverse field of editors who are interested in ensuring that Wikipedia articles that address health controversies; a) comply with Wikipedia guideliness and policies, especially WP:NPOV; and b) evolve to becoming some of the best articles in Wikipedia, informing readers on important issues.

[edit] Scope

This WikiProject aims primarily to create, improve and organize articles relating to health controversies. This includes but is not limited to the history of health controversies.

[edit] Background

As could be expected, a number of editors - with various points of view - are creating, editing, and very often disputing articles related to health. Since it is possible, though arguably not advisable, that readers consult Wikipedia on topics that relate to health care decisions, it is important that health-related controversies be treated in a consistent way.

[edit] The imperative

Wikipedia policies and guidelines adequately prescribe the kind of editing behavior we should expect from each other, but there is still a lot of unpleasantry on controversial issues within health topics. While it is acceptable, and perhaps good, that there is disagreement and dissent, we need a shared framework for creating really good articles from them.

[edit] Why a project?

Well, for several reasons:

• We do have a unified purpose, which is to inform the Wikipedia readership. Sure, we differ on what are the most salient facts and assertions, which sources to believe, and what conclusions are valid in light of everything else; but I think we can all hold ourselves up to that standard.
• This is a vast and complicated field. Any one editor, if he/she is honest with himself/herself, can contribute meaningfully to more than a few areas of interest, but we still want consistency across the whole area.
• Accuracy and precision are valued in the fields themselves, and this should be reflected in Wikipedia. Or to put it more bluntly: nothing discredits Wikipedia more than bad health-related articles.
• A good health-related article is very difficult to write. Editors who have dedicated themselves to a particular topic put in a lot of time to craft it well - the more we can minimize unnecessary conflict and contention, the better.

[edit] What would the project include?

A list of guidelines, suggestions, templates, tools, etc., should seek to resolve:

• Application of Wikipedia's policy on Neutral point of view, including consideration of:
  • How we characterize a controversy without engaging in it
  • How we deal with majority, minority, and fringe points of view
  • How we avoid rhetorical fallacies creeping in, keeping each other honest
  • How we differentiate among types of controversies, i.e., ethical, medical, philosophical, etc.
  • What it means to "write for the enemy" on these issues
• Application of Wikipedia's policy on verifiability, including:
  • How we characterize and use sources and other resources
  • How we distinguish among the relevant sources, of which there are many in this field
• Application of no original research
• How to hold each other to high standards in the service of better articles, rather than engaging in personal attacks and other bad behavior
• How we deal consistently with certain attributes that are characteristic of this field, including (but not limited to)
  • The evolving nature of the field - there is constant news of new findings, new hypotheses, etc.
  • The diversity of points of view on virtually every area, ranging from the mainstream to the "out there."
  • The confluence (and sometimes confusion) of science, ethics, public policy, politics, religion, etc., that can be found in the field
  • And not least, the emotional content of these issues, from all points of view

Also, it would be helpful to keep track of articles that need help in various ways, whether it's an outright request for comment or moderation, or tags, or a lot of instability. Or, more benignly, that more expertise is needed to complete it.

--Leifern 17:13, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What this project won't accomplish

There are a couple of things that are not the objectives of this project, namely:

• Resolving the controversies - however, we want to characterize the controversies accurately, so that those who are involved in them can agree that the presentation of their arguments is unbiased.
• Exposing quacks, conspirators, and other evil-doers. Wikipedia goes out of its way to avoid branding notable people as one thing or another, and this should also apply in this area. Instead, we should focus on what people say and how they seek to substantiate it.
• Discrediting editors who are up to no good. Seriously, the purpose of this project is to improve the quality of articles, not to scare, intimidate, or annoy editors from contributing.

[edit] Initial positions (subject to continuous change)

(Please use talk page for disputes on these)

[edit] How we characterize a controversy without engaging in it

I would suggest that philosophy might be of some help here. I knew it would come in handy sometime!! Medicine is fundamentally and engineering discipline in which cost/effectiveness is the chief issue. And so for public health as well. Science informs the practices of both, but medicine (at least its clinical practice) is not science. Especially when the placebo effect is lurking about. When we add difficulties in sorting out cause and effect amidst the statistics and experimental study designs, things get rather obscure. The ideal of a study is to find a clear signal, for or against some treatment, drug, etc. Given the complications, such signals are not abundant on the ground. Especially when commercial advantage, legal and regulatory considerations, and the usual personality issues weigh in. There are cases in which science can so fuly inform that there should be little room for 'alternate' practices. For instance, vaccination for snallpox (a dead issue though it now be). Oppostion to that program was clearly boneheaded. Or the importance of uncontaminated water supplies in preventing cholera outbreaks, or the use of antibiotics in agriculture (the dominant use of them by far) as groth imporvers, on the development of resistance in the bugs when infecting humans. And there are cases in which there is very little science but lots of speculation, such as much of the discussion about dietary effects on immune system fucntion (and so resistance to infection and such). In these cases, there is a great deal of room for alternative practices, there being nothing (or little) on which to base a choice of any practice. This distinction can be, and certainly should be, used as a guide to characterizing controversial points. ww 20:03, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How we deal with majority, minority, and fringe points of view

[edit] How we avoid rhetorical fallacies creeping in, keeping each other honest

This project is unlikely to find any such method. Human history, indeed being played out currently, suggest otherwise. Perhaps we should all read the logical fallacy articles? ww 20:05, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How we differentiate among types of controversies, i.e., ethical, medical, philosophical, etc.

[edit] What it means to "write for the enemy" on these issues

[edit] How we characterize and use sources and other resources

[edit] How we distinguish among the relevant sources, of which there are many in this field

[edit] Application of no original research

[edit] How to hold each other to high standards in the service of better articles, rather than engaging in personal attacks and other bad behavior

[edit] How we deal consistently with certain attributes that are characteristic of this field

[edit] Parentage

The parents of this WikiProject are Wikipedia:WikiProject Alternative medicine and WikiProject Clinical medicine.

[edit] Descendant WikiProjects

[edit] Similar WikiProjects

Similar WikiProjects include:

[edit] Related WikiProjects

• Wikipedia:Scientific peer review

[edit] Related Wikiportals

No related Wikiportals have been named.

[edit] Related Collaborations

No related Collaborations have been named.

[edit] Related notice boards

• Notice board for autism-related topics, June, 2005
• Notice board for vaccine-related topics, June, 2005

[edit] Related groups of Wikipedians

No related Wikipedians have been named.

[edit] Related pages in Sister projects

• [[Commons:{{{1}}}]]
• [[Wikibooks:{{{1}}}]]
• [[Wikinews:{{{1}}}]]
• [[Wikiquote:{{{1}}}]]
• [[Wikisource:{{{1}}}]]
• [[Wikispecies:{{{1}}}]]
• [[Wiktionary:{{{1}}}]]
• [[meta:{{{1}}}]]

[edit] Sister Project Searches

• WikiBooks search
• Google WikiBooks search
• WikiQuote search
• Google WikiQuote search
• WikiSource search
• Google WikiSource search

[edit] Participants

You may add yourself to the list here and/or add {{WikiProject Health controversies}} to your profile page.

1. Ombudsman 15:21, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
2. Gleng 14:19, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
3. Johntex\^talk 19:36, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Structure

[edit] Hierarchy definition

• Health controversies (Category:Health controversies)

[edit] Goals

1.  ?

[edit] Projects

1.  ?

[edit] Tasks

1.  ?

[edit] Adopt an article

Similar to the Collaboration of the week, but on a smaller scale, you might want to 'adopt' an article. This would involve researching, writing, and picture-taking (if possible) for either a non-existent article or a stub. Of course, everyone else can still edit an adopted article, and you can work on other things too, but the idea is to find a focus for a while, to try and build up the number of quality articles the Project has produced.

• Example article: User:Example

[edit] General strategy and discussion forums

• /General
• /Strategy

[edit] Infoboxes

[edit] Templates

What to type	What it makes	What it's for
{{health controversies-stub}} Talk	Template:Health controversies-stub	The official stub for health controversy-related articles.
{{Health controversies project}} Talk	Template:Health controversies project	The project notice, designed to be placed in the talk page of any article that has been edited as part of this Wikiproject.
{{User WikiProject Health controversies}} Talk	Template:User WikiProject Health controversies	Just a userbox to tell others what you love to do on wikipedia!

[edit] Other templates

• {{template}}

{{template{{{Health controversies}}} }}

[edit] Categories

• [[:Category:{{{Health controversies}}}]]

[edit] Lists

[edit] Articles

[edit] Wikipedia articles on {{{Health controversies}}}

• [[{{{Health controversies}}}]]

[edit] Wikipedia namespace and Meta-Wiki articles on {{{Health controversies}}}

• [[Wikipedia:{{{Health controversies}}}]]
• [[meta:{{{Health controversies}}}]]

[edit] New Wikipedia articles related to {{{Health controversies}}}

Please feel free to list your new {{{Health controversies}}}-related articles here (newer articles at the top, please). Any new articles that have an interesting or unusual fact in them should be suggested for the Did you know? box on the Main Wikipedia page. DYN has a 72 hour time limit from the creation of the article.

[edit] Did you know?

[edit] Article improvement drive

Conversion disorder needs many more pairs of eyes and pairs of hemispheres for that matter...--PaulWicks 13:08, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Diabetic ketoacidosis. I'll nominate it. Aside from some persistently unfortunate writing, there is a real problem with the contnet. KA is not so simple as usually represented, however clincally rasonable that may be. Given that ketosis is normal, why diabetic ketosis cna become dissstrous is not so obvious. And I don;t think thia article is very reliable on this point. Assorted Web seraches have not turned up anything that I can take very seriously. Not being in research, and years away from all my biology course work, I'm not the best candidate anyway. ww 19:46, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Collaboration of the week

[edit] Peer review

[edit] Featured articles

[edit] Featured article candidates

• Baby Gender Mentor

[edit] Featured pictures

[edit] Featured picture candidates

[edit] Featured lists

[edit] Featured list candidates

[edit] Article series box

The {{Medicine}} template only belongs on the pages that cover medical specialties. It can be seen below: