Contrib12

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Please do take some time to review the information in the links above. Again, welcome! Jytdog (talk) 18:33, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

From ENS talk

copied here from this dif and this dif - this is not about improving the article Jytdog (talk) 18:27, 10 June 2016 (UTC) @jytdog, @dubbin, As mentioned elsewhere in this talk page, changes to the page have been heavy handed and not collaborative. Virtually all the content on the page now comes from editors who have experience with editing Wiki health pages but have admittedly very short-lived and limited experience with the actual content of what the page is about which is ENS, its symptoms, causes and treatments, etc. The editor input is valuable advice to ensure that appropriate references are used and that the contents should be WP:NPOV. But throughout this entire editing process, the majority of input from those (whom have been locked out of editing) much more familiar with ENS and the overall research have consistently been rejected claiming that it is biased yet the slant that is being placed by the main editors is somehow deemed completely neutral. There are are a number of instances where certain statements are taken out of context, over emphasised, omitted, etc with claims it is completely neutral but with a deeper understanding of the overall history, current status, the documented (although not completely understood) underlying components of the condition, the statements do not line up. Much of the material is based on 3 recent articles which has been consistently stated as the "best" references. There is valuable information in these articles and there are citations that can be taken from these publications but it is only one perspective that these are "best" sources. For example, Leong has some good information but is really aimed at describing surgical interventions for treating ENS but not as an overall summary source of cause, symptoms, severity, etc of ENS. As another example of how the editing has taken place, the symptoms now listed have been edited down to a small subset of the complete list of symptoms (see Coste publication as an example of a more complete list of symptoms). Since only a subset of documented and referenceable symptoms are included, the reasonable conclusion is which symptoms have been chosen to be included and omitted are based on your opinion of which are worthy of inclusion. For example, sleep issues are not even mentioned but throughout the literature it is one of the most common and severe issues mentioned. Oozing and foul smells are listed and can occur but is much less common for ENS and more common a symptom of AR. Thus, why is sleep unlisted and fouls smell listed? Which symptoms are listed and omitted does not seem to have a clear basis. A better familiarity with the subject matter would make this easily recognizable and can be referenced by medical literature published over many years. The contents of this page needs to be much more WP:CONSENSUS and not dominated by only 2 editors making all the decisions. Contrib12 (talk) 18:05, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

@Contrib12: This is a very long talk page and all the points you raise have been made by others. Please take the time to refer to the guidelines signposted by many editors now. Experience of ENS is probably a disadvantage in producing balanced content, but certainly doesn't disqualify anyone as long as they are able to read and follow the guidance that is actually the basis for why you consider Wikipedia important. The banner at the top (the one that says "There have been attempts to recruit editors of specific viewpoints to this article") is the best place to find links directing you towards guidance that will actually allow you to become a useful contributor here. If you choose not to read them, you will likely find yourself shouting into a void. Dubbin^{u | t | c} 18:18, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Contrib12 I moved this here b/c this is not about improving the article. It is about user behavior.

The issue is that we have four people here who are very new to Wikipedia and who are very passionate about it - who are advocates (if you haven't read that, please do). Advocacy is a huge problem in Wikipedia, this being the "encyclopedia that anyone can edit". Advocates tend to come here with the attitude: "I do not care what "policies and guidelines" you have. What I want to say is IMPORTANT AND MUST BE SAID NOW." and what is happening here is typical - we get this crush of zillions of comments about twenty things at once.

Bottom line. Wikipedia is not a soapbox. it is not a vehicle for advocacy. Every time one of your four log in, you promise to leave your passion behind and put on a Wikipedian hat. Some of you are doing better than others.

As for your comment about WP:CONSENSUS - CONSENSUS does not mean "whatever the people working on a page are saying now." Local consensus cannot override the community's past consensus that is expressed in the policies and guidelines. Please actually read WP:CONSENSUS with care, and also WP:PAG. So if what you are writing on the article Talk page is not based solely on the best sources via the policies and guidelines, it doesn't count toward consensus. It is just noise. That is how Wikipedia works. It is a clue-ocracy. (please read that - it is very short) Jytdog (talk) 18:32, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Finally, advocates tend to be so caught up in their frustration that they just make mistakes. You say "sleep issues are not even mentioned". Read the second paragraph of Empty_nose_syndrome#Signs_and_symptoms again.

I wrote stuff on the other three editor's talk pages that you didn't get. I don't know if they read it, but I will give it to you. Please do take some time to get better grounded. Jytdog (talk) 18:32, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

Jytdog moved your post while I was replying to it. I was about to say the same things, but rather more bluntly, I'm afraid. I will note one point that Jytdog didn't mention: the list of symptoms in the lead was determined to be the most common symptoms by PMID 25430954 which states: "The most common clinical symptoms are paradoxical nasal obstruction, nasal dryness and crusting, and a persistent feeling of dyspnea". It's not editorial bias to only include the commonest symptoms in the lead, which is expected to be a summary, and the choice of those symptoms was made by a reliable, secondary source, not by any editor here. --RexxS (talk) 18:44, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

There have been many frequent and different edits of the page and it has been difficult to keep track of all the changing versions. That said, if I misspeak I will acknowledge the error and thus I would have been more accurate to qualify my statement and should have said "is not even mentioned as a main/severe symptom" so that would have been a better statement of my input and I apologize for not being more precise about my point. Still, one has many choices of quality publications to reference and for any individual it is a subjective choice which one to reference even when trying to be objective on which references to include/omit. You chose a particular reference that summarized the symptoms in the abstract in one way. I don't think it is a stretch to say that a different choice would have some different statements and there is the possibility that there is a better choice. A majority of comments/input are marginalized as "advocacy." I understand that this is not a soapbox and do not want the page to look like my opinions nor the opinions of others. I agree with the notion that the page should be fact based and have appropriate valid references. I also have no desire to be disruptive and will strive to follow wiki guidelines but suggest I will make some honest mistakes in the attempt. What I will do is try to provide concrete examples of specific edits that I think should be made (with appropriate citations) and expect that instead of immediately being labeled and dismissed as advocacy that my input will be respected as part of the whole during the editing process. Contrib12 (talk) 23:30, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

A note on advocacy in Wikipedia

Please do read this, and think about it.

A lot of people come to Wikipedia because they are very passionate about something. That is in some ways great, and in some ways terrible.

There are a lot of things that Wikipedia is not (see What Wikipedia is not) and one of the things WP is not, is a platform for advocacy. Please especially see the section, WP:NOTADVOCACY. "What Wikipedia is Not" is both a policy and a "pillar" - something very essential to the very guts of this place. People come edit for many reasons, but one of the main ones is that they are passionate about something. That passion is a double-edged sword. It drives people to contribute which has the potential for productive construction, but it can also lead people to abuse Wikipedia - to hijack it from its mission of providing the world with free access to "accepted knowledge." Some people come here and try to create promotional content about their companies (classic "COI"), some come to tell everybody how bad it is to eat meat, some come to grind various political axes... we get all kinds of advocacy (financial COI is just a subset of it) It all comes down to violations of NOTADVOCACY. A lot of times, people don't even understand this is not OK. I try to talk with folks, to make sure they are aware of these issues.

For non-COI advocacy issues, we have three very good essays offering advice - one is WP:ADVOCACY another is WP:SPA, and see also WP:TENDENTIOUS which describes how advocacy editors tend to behave. Please do read those.

So, while I hear you that you are passionate about ENS in the real world, but please do try to check that at the login page. And while you are free to edit about whatever the heck you want, please do consider broadening the scope of your editing. (I do realize that you are just getting started here, and everybody starts somewhere! Who knows where you will end up)

Changes to content (adding or deleting) need to be governed by the content policies and guidelines - namely WP:VERIFY, WP:OR, WP:NPOV, and WP:NOT and the sourcing guidelines WP:RS and WP:MEDRS.

In terms of behavior, the really key behavioral policies are WP:CONSENSUS, WP:CIVIL, WP:AGF, WP:HARASSMENT, WP:EDITWAR, and WP:DR, and the key guideline is WP:TPG. If you can get all that (the content and behavior policies and guidelines) under your belt, you will become truly "clueful", as we say. If that is where you want to go, of course.

But do try to aim everything you do and write in Wikipedia to further Wikipedia's mission (not your mission) and base everything you do on the spirit (not just the letter) of the content and behavior policies and guidelines. Your passions will determine what you work on, but they shouldn't guide how you work here. I hope that makes sense.

If you have questions about working in WP at any time going forward, or about anything I wrote above, please ask me. I am happy to talk. Jytdog (talk) 18:34, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

References

Remember that when adding content about health, please only use high-quality reliable sources as references. We typically use review articles, major textbooks and position statements of national or international organizations. WP:MEDHOW walks you through editing step by step. A list of resources to help edit health content can be found here. The edit box has a built-in citation tool to easily format references based on the PMID or ISBN. We also provide style advice about the structure and content of medicine-related encyclopedia articles. The welcome page is another good place to learn about editing the encyclopedia. If you have any questions, please feel free to drop me a note.

If you don't understand why MEDRS is like it is, please see WP:Why MEDRS? Jytdog (talk) 18:35, 10 June 2016 (UTC)