DPG1993
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Cochrane reviews edit
Hello and welcome. I cannot imagine that your addition of references to Cochrane reviews will be controversial, but please be aware of Wikipedia's conflict of interests policy.
Could I ask you to use citation templates when you add references? WP:MEDRS contains some guidance on how to automatically populate these templates for rapid use. Addition of the PMID number would be very helpful. JFW | T@lk 11:34, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
- Hi, and welcome from me too. I should note that WP:MEDRS is our guideline page on using sources, but WP:MEDMOS is the style guideline that covers formatting citations and other things. It is perfectly valid to format citations by hand rather than using templates, but having a "bare URL" isn't considered good style. The convention is that if you are adding another source to an article that uses citations templates, then you should also do so, but if the article has the citations formatted by hand, then you should follow that style. If you use the templates then there are parameters for the URL, PMID and DOI. See Tourette syndrome for an example of an article that doesn't use templates but has proper journal citations. WP:MEDMOS has all the gory details.
- On another point, it would be best if the text you add didn't keep saying "According to a Cochrane review..." or similar. If the review is authoratative then the results can be stated as a fact. This isn't a newspaper that is reporting the latest research findings, but an encyclopaedia of facts. This will also help with any COI concerns people may raise about articles being spammed.
Username edit
Welcome to Wikipedia, we look forward to your participation in building the world's largest encyclopedia. Please be aware that our policy regarding usernames is intended to exclude collective names for editors. Simply put, each person editing under a username should have their own identity, they should not be sharing a username or password. This has several benefits, including that users each get their own user talk pages. Regards, LeadSongDog come howl! 14:30, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
Hello JFW, Colin and LeadSongDog! edit
Thank you all for your feedback. Editing Wikipedia is completely new to me, and I’ve found that a great deal of the rules are unknown (/unknowable!) until you begin to work on the website.
JFW, after some tweaking I understand the template that you created on the myocardial infarctions page and will endeavour to use that format from now on. Thank you for your welcome message.
Colin, I agree with you about the wording choice – I wanted to follow the flow of the encyclopaedia, and as a number of other entries mentioned Cochrane by name, I made entries in a similar proportion. I am still keen to assure readers that the information comes from a systematic review (rather than a single RCT or lesser study), but will use more appropriate language.
LeadSongDog, I’ve re-written the user page to make it clear that the edits are coming from one person, even if they reflect the work done by tens of thousands of people.
Now that additions have been made, I hope that we’ve (I’ve!) added some value to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a source of medical information for both patients and doctors, and I wouldn’t have added anything if I didn’t think we’d be adding a bit of good. Many thanks again for your feedback. DPG1993 (talk) 11:15, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
- First of all have another welcome message from me. Be sure that all your additions are good, even if some tweaking can be used. Beginings here can be harsh so be patient and ask anything you are not sure.. I only wanted to comment a few other things: while most probably above editors are watching your page (I am :-) and will see the comments above is usually a better idea to post messages to other users in their talk pages, so they see them more easily. Regarding the template use, I suppose you refer to formatting citations. The easiest way to do it is not by hand but using diberris tool, where you only have to add the pubmed id and gives you the formatted citation that you can later paste in a wikipedia article. It saves a lot of time. Regarding saying every time origin of a source: I agree with Colin: what I usually do, and what is probably best practice according to wikipedia policies, is to state as true what comes out from a systematic review such as those of Cocrhane, and only as possibilities results in other kind of sources. This is intended to be a general encyclopedia for lay readers, so most probably most of them would have never heard of cochrane or would even know the difference between a primary and secondary source. Finally I would recommend that you added to your watchlist WP:MED (the medicine project). Wikipedia is not only easier but also much more fun if you keep in touch and interact with other editors. This said... I hope you enjoy your time here... Feel free to ask at my talk page anything you want.--Garrondo (talk) 15:47, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
- Yes once again welcome. All the formatting issues can be a little confusing at the start. Love the Cochrane work and it is great to have someone who is interested it getting it better represented. If you have any question feel free to drop me a note. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:56, 3 December 2010 (UTC)