Talk:Viral disease

Latest comment: 2 years ago by Mithalwulf in topic Academic / Medical Language and Accessibility

TALK discussion edit

An interesting article; thanks. I'll be 'watching' and assisting as I am able. I'm not a doctor, nor in the medical profession (except in homeopathics I know and use.) I know more than ten times what the general pubic knows; but beyond that, I know friends and associates that know ten times more than I do. -- Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 18:17, 31 July 2014 (UTC)Reply

New NEWS today (for future editing) edit

Headline: Dr Manny: Why are there deadly viruses in the world?

QUOTE: " There are thousands upon thousands of unique viruses documented around the world, with new ones being discovered all the time. But they somehow continue to come as a surprise to most people because it wasn’t until the 20th century that we actually started to understand these viruses and come up with solutions to control them." -- Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 18:34, 31 July 2014 (UTC) -- PS: FYI for additional future editing.Reply

Dr Manny gives five examples of current high interest:

  • Ebola: A deadly outbreak of the virus in West Africa that has killed over 600 people
  • Anthrax: Although not a virus, symptoms can take anywhere from one day to …
  • Marburg virus: First identified during outbreaks in Marburg and Frankfurt, Germany in 1967
  • Hantavirus: People become infected with hantavirus … infected rodents
  • HIV: Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) affects 35 million people worldwide

Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 18:55, 31 July 2014 (UTC)Reply

Please use strikethrough when editing past comments. Refer to WP:TALK. Thank you! RiesHunter (talk) 03:26, 14 September 2021 (UTC)Reply

The lede can be improved edit

More can be said to be more descriptive than, "These are tables, ...". The lede can be improved to describe "Viruses" and "Viral disease" -- IMHO, Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 19:07, 31 July 2014 (UTC)Reply

HHV-6 edit

There's no mention of HHV-6 in the article. Can anyone fix this? Glaciare (talk) 13:29, 21 January 2016 (UTC)Reply

More citations needed edit

There aren't enough citations in the table and some other areas. In particular some of the coronavirus sections. Thanks Australiaman9999 (talk) 05:24, 11 December 2021 (UTC)Reply

Academic / Medical Language and Accessibility edit

This page (Viral Disease) is an example of a major concern I have for many Wikipedia pages. The material is virtually ALL "professional lingo" (language that only those inducted into the specialized field can follow). Since I wrote academic articles, I saw this quite a bit, and it frequently poses an artificial and largely unnecessary barrier to learning information and the exchange of ideas. The purpose of an encyclopedia, in my opinion, should be to provide ACCESS to all topics presented without having to click through twenty links to understand the given article. Supplemental reading should present additional information, of course, but each article should stand on its own as accessible to the vast majority of readers. Specific examples: enveloped, non-enveloped, icosahedral capsids, etc. Thank you for your consideration.

Addendum: after a bit more exploring, I found this page: What Wikipedia is Not. I would argue that this article is in violation of #6, 7, and 8. (Wikipedia should not be a textbook, scientific journal, or use overly academic language.)

Mithalwulf (talk) 19:23, 25 January 2022 (UTC); updated Mithalwulf (talk) 19:33, 25 January 2022 (UTC)Reply