Should “quackery” and “pseudoscience” appear in the opening paragraph of this entry? Aenean (talk) 03:27, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Support these descriptors, with caveats (Summoned by bot). This seems to be a fair summary of the content of the article, and so a perfectly valid application of WP:lead in that respect. However, I do feel the sourcing being used to directly support this statement in the lead itself could be improved. For such a major practice among traditional folk cure and trendy new age contexts both, I can't imagine these are the only sources which treat the therapeutic value of cupping empirically. So I'd ideally like to see more in that respect. However, even if working from just the sourcing cited in the lead and that scattered throughout the rest of the article casting doubt on the claims of efficacy associated with these, shall we call them arts, it would still be enough for me to narrowly support the statement as written. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 08:13, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• RfC should be withdrawn. Per WP:RFCBEFORE. Aenean has made no attempt to discuss the matter nor edit the article. --Hipal (talk) 16:31, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  User:Aenean, thanks for trying to start a conversation about this. It would be good to know why you think this discussion should happen. If you think the terms are inappropriate, the first step would be to be WP:BOLD and either change the lead or tag the lead for improvement. Or you can start a conversation here on the Talk page without the full "request for comment" process. (As you can see, starting an RFC results in editors who aren't connected to the page [like me] receiving notifications, so it's often best to discuss any changes with people more familiar with the topic area before starting a full Request for Comment.) Suriname0 (talk) 17:29, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)As someone who responds to a lot of RfCs, I'm starting to see a call for a procedural close on almost every single one (having ramped up steadily in occurence over the last few years), and I have to say, without meaning personal offense Hipal, some are so reflexive and counter-intuitive, I'm beginning to wonder if we need a WP:BEFOREYOUCITERFCBEFORE addendum to the RfC guidance page. Because there are multiple fairly long discussion on this page, going back more than six months, about exactly the language being discussed by the RfC prompt, more discussion in the archives, and there is an extensive back and forth, complete with edit warring and much edit summary cross chatter, in the recent weeks (and also obviously having been a habitual point of contention for a long while).

Most importantly this is an issue that we can reasonably predict will not be settled unless there is a firm consensus established, and such an effort benefits from extra eyes, ideally from previously uninvolved editors. I see no reason why the OP should not have availed themselves of this process to the resolve the matter and end the slow moving edit war, and it would be extremely WP:BURO to procedurally close just because they hadn't themselves opened a thread immediately before this one, given that they knew the dispute existed, had been revisted multiple times here recently, and was in an intractable place. That more than satisfies the purpose of RFCBEFORE. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 17:36, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Not even to mention the procedural fact that this can't be withdrawn since someone !voted support... CLYDE ^{TALK TO ME}/_{STUFF DONE} 20:15, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hipal, Suriname0, Girth Summit, et al.,

With respect, scroll up.

I find the contention on this article, its edit history, and its talk page self-evident.

I saw less experienced editors protest, and lose to their seniors not necessarily because of the efficacy of their arguments but because of their ignorance of Wikipedia:BURO and become disallusioned with the editing process.

So I studied Wikipedia:Dispute resolution to invite more seasoned voices, not knowing that a meta conflict would fester here because I failed to ceremonily ask that what had been asked-and-answered before.

I maintain this procedural ask to withdraw and counters in the _intent_ of Wikipedia:Dispute resolution.

And thank you Snow Rise for your empathy for the new editor experience, and for putting to words that which I could not.

Respectfully, Aenean (talk) 21:01, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The WP:PROFRINGE editors did not lose on WP:BURO grounds, but mainly due to WP:PSCI and WP:MEDRS, which are WP:PAGs. For many years it isn't a secret that Wikipedia is biased for the medical orthodoxy, see WP:LUNATICS. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:06, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Creationists, climate change deniers, 9/11 conspiracy theorists, astrologers, homeopaths, covidiots, flat-earthers, holocaust deniers and many others agree with you. What you said is pretty much the same reasoning they use. According to them, their worldviews are also not rejected by Wikipedia because they are rejected by mainstream sources but because of all those biased Wikipedia editors. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:15, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia has not only a WP:Manual of Style, but also, so to speak, a Manual of POV. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:22, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You're very welcome, Aenean, though in truth I am just calling the procedural issue as I see it. If I am honest with you on the substantive issue, I don't think you have much chance of prevailing here, but because there had not previously been a formal consensus discussion of any significant scale arriving at a firm conclusion on this wording, you were/are entitled to raise it via RfC. Even if it is the kind of long shot a more experienced editor might have decided not to waste the effort on, you are still invoking the right process for the right purpose, which means we should be equally pro forma about engaging with that inquiry--even if we are highly confident of the result.

All of that said, if you really would like to show appreciation for my taking a moment to support your right under process to ask a question that others feel has a foregone conclusion, please just pay the courtesy forward in kind by accepting the resulting consensus, whatever it is, and letting the matter go (at least for the foreseeable future) if the result is to include the language. On a more general note: welcome to the project and happy editing! SnowRise ^{let's rap} 23:09, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Obviously yes, these descriptors should be in the lead section, because they are accurate and give the reader important information about the subject. But I agree with others that this RfC is unnecessary and should be withdrawn. Girth Summit _(blether) 20:19, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes (support), and yes, it's obvious. I'm someone who already watches this page, and I know that this is a perennial complaint, that always fails to get traction, every time it comes up, but it keeps coming up again and again. Whatever the procedural arguments may be about whether this RfC should exist or not, the answer to the RfC question remains the same: asking to treat this as anything other than quackery and pseudoscience fails WP:MEDRS and is POV-pushing. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:32, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes in mainstream medicine cupping therapy is dead in the water. Whether physiotherapy using vacuum suction might have some merit is a question that has to be addressed separately from this article. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:36, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have the same concerns you do there, if I had to guess what they are: that any discussion of the physiotherapy use of suction cups as a therapeutic treatment (no matter how minor its role or how limited the evidence for its value) will be latched on to as a gateway to try to validate the entire collective of "cupping" practices. However, if it came to the point where RS were actually discussing these physiotherapy techniques as a "type of cupping" or otherwise associating the topics, our hands would be tied at that juncture.

As it is, keeping out reference to this purported new physiotherapy practice with the little plastic apparatuses is a little dubious, since it pretty obviously does involve some of the same mechanics, if only on a very superficial level. We can embrace the technicality for now that it is not called "cupping" as best we know, but if that changes, we'll have to cover it here as WP:DUE matter and just be careful about how we frame it. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 22:54, 18 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes the adjectives pseudoscience and quackery accurately describe the current status of this purported medical treatment. (Summoned by bot) Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 03:54, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes In fact, this should be the first sentence, not the second. It's quackery and pseudoscience used in alternative medicine, not alternative medicine derided as quackery. AltMed as a term gives too much credit to the fringe and lends it legitimacy.

Cupping therapy is a pseudoscience in which local suction is created on the skin with the application of heated cups. Its practice mainly occurs in Asia but also in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America. Cupping has been characterized as quackery though it is practiced as a form of alternative medicine.

SchmuckyTheCat (talk) 04:45, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes it should be in the lead paragraph, if not the lead sentence.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6]} Isaidnoway (talk) 19:19, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - I am strongly opposed to trigger and peacock terms like these in general, but they are well-used and well-attested in this instance. Cheers, Last1in (talk) 13:36, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]