The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Does the "Debates" section in this diff breach WP:MEDRS and therefore should it be deleted? Yes / No --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 18:32, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Leaning no, with the proviso that the section definitely needs editing. The subject matter is not about a specific disease or treatment; while it is about human biology, it does not provide medical advice. Thus, the primary motive for WP:MEDRS is not really in force. The section is outlining a set of scientific disputes that probably have indirect relevance to medicine eventually, and the sourcing is overall adequate for that kind of material. (MEDRS advises, Editors are encouraged to seek out the scholarly research behind the news story. One possibility is to cite a higher-quality source along with a more-accessible popular source, which appears to be what this section is aiming for.) I do think it needs revision for clarity and concision, but I can't see the case for deleting it altogether. XOR'easter (talk) 18:50, 13 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• yes, the "Debates" section is in breach with WP:MEDRS as it's not based on secondary sources; in parts not even based on peer-reviewed sources. In contrast, according to WP:MEDRS "all biomedical information must be based on reliable, third-party published secondary sources, and must accurately reflect current knowledge.". Lucleon (talk) 20:37, 14 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• yes per MEDRSWikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources_(medicine).....an example would be reference 29/Connellan, Jennifer; Baron-Cohen, Simon; Wheelwright, Sally; Batki, Anna; Ahluwalia, Jag (January 2000). "Sex differences in human neonatal social perception". Infant Behavior and Development. 23 (1): 113–118. doi:10.1016/S0163-6383(00)00032-1. Retrieved 15 March 2019., should not be older than 5 years, so it is failing to observe MEDRS--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:01, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I presume you are referring to the WP:MEDDATE section. This article is not about a particular medical condition, it is about a network which examines the basis on which research is carried out. The debates section is an account of the debates in neuroscience, those debates are current and these are the latest examples. Professor Gina Rippon's latest book, Gendered Brain: the new neuroscience that shatters the myth of the female brain ISBN 9781847924759, 2019 is based on the on-going debate. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 12:34, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• No WP:MEDRS refers to biomedical information, the lead section reads all biomedical information must be based on reliable, third-party published secondary sources, and must accurately reflect current knowledge. This article is not providing biomedical information it is an article about a network of researchers and what informs their research. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 12:47, 15 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Support removal. I can't !vote "yes" insofar as I don't agree that MEDRS is violated here, for the reasons articulated by XOR'easter and The Vintage Feminist above, and additionally because the sole primary source is utilized only to source a straight forward summary of it's conclusions, directly quoting and attributing appropriately. That's an entirely permissible use of sourcing, MEDRS topic or not, insofar as the attribution is accurate. Now, it may go out for weight or other issues, but as a sourcing matter, that's fine. The problem is, while the attributed statement itself is fine, it's only really in the article to foreground the opinions of that study expressed by various individuals, in a way that doesn't really help encyclopedically describe the organization but rather the views of various members. In other words, a WP:COATRACK, and one that specifically involves a kind of WP:Original research through the back door. Our editors would be selecting which quotes and stances are supposedly emblematic of the group. WP:reliable sources can do that, but we as editors may not. So in the end this does indeed come around to a need for WP:Secondary sources (just not as a MEDRS but rather more general sourcing principle), plus the concern of the scope of relevance to the nominal article topic. Snow ^{let's rap} 05:01, 21 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is, while the attributed statement itself is fine, it's only really in the article to foreground the opinions of that study expressed by various individuals, in a way that doesn't really help encyclopedically describe the organization but rather the views of various members. The views of the various members are the reason for the network's existence, how can we describe the network without describing their views?

Our editors would be selecting which quotes and stances are supposedly emblematic of the group. WP:reliable sources can do that, but we as editors may not. We would never be able to write any article about any group if we didn't do exactly that. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 18:31, 22 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

No, I'm afraid that's exactly what WP:OR, WP:WEIGHT, and other central policies carefully advise that me must avoid doing in all such cases. We cannot go around willy-nilly selecting the facts, stances, or primary statements that we, in our idiosyncratic view as individuals, feel are the "important" or "representative" details about a given organization. That is the role of WP:Secondary, WP:reliable sources. If such sources describe a given statement, stance, or outlook as one being representative of the group (or in some cases, when the group does so itself, expressly) then we might discuss that source's interpretation, ideally with clear attribution. But what we can't do is use this article to WP:coatrack in a bunch of independent statements made by members of the organization (but with no explicit connection to their role within said organization, as established by those primary sources) and construct for ourselves the narrative that these particular statements, by these particular individuals, on these particular occasions, are the ones which represent and define the organization. That would be plain and blatant original research, unless a citeable RS has already made such an observation. Snow ^{let's rap} 21:47, 23 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes - (Responding to the RfC) I think Snow Rise is right here; the sources look to be okay for statements about those individuals and their beliefs, as would appear, for example, on their own articles. But we're lacking evidence that these are positions of the network as a whole, so secondary sources (or official statements on behalf of the network, if there are such things) would be preferable. "The group includes at least one member who believes X" doesn't tell us much about any group, and runs the risk of inadvertent bias if belief X doesn't happen to be as representative as we think. Anaxial (talk) 08:59, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • That seems like a thing that could be fixed by editing and condensing the section, which I think ought to happen anyway. In other words, it's a phrasing issue, rather than an existence-of-the-whole-section issue. XOR'easter (talk) 21:50, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree with Snow Rise I can't really say yes/no to this, as I don't think it's in breach of MEDRS - the article describes the research and the differences in interpretations, but falls short of actually making a statement about whether either view is correct and therefore making an actual biomedical assertion. However, from the sources presented here I agree that it's not clear that the views ascribed to the individuals formally represent those of the network itself; I'm also not clear on why we are giving so much weight to these two particular debates (to the extent that discussion of them makes up almost half the content of the article). I'd suggest that we either remove the section, or reword to make the distinction between the network and its individual members clearer, and greatly expand to give a better representation of the work that members of the network do. GirthSummit _(blether) 11:51, 4 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Leaning agree with Snow Rise: Alerted to discussion by The Vintage Feminist's post at WT:POLITICS. Unless someone proves to me that these are all unreliable sources, I cannot vote 'yes'. But it is possible that undue weight is given to specific controversies, arranged in a way that implies that Wikipedia thinks that the organization is a fringe group that fixes their experiments and unduly discredits studies that undermine their allegedly feminist agenda. — Mr. Guye (talk) (contribs)  14:37, 6 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment / Questions @Snow Rise, Anaxial, and Mr. Guye: One of the members of the network is Professor Gina Rippon she gave a talk at the Women of the World Festival 2014 (from 6 mins in).^[1]

Anyone who wants to choose and replace the debates with other debates that they think are more representative examples of the network's ethos then I would have no problem with that, but at the moment it feels like [an analogy] "Ah yes you have found quotes from Bernie Saunders and his campaign team that show he/they have left-wing views but how do we know he/they have left-wing views and you didn't just go cherry-picking willy-nilly?" The NeuroGenderings Network set up to tackle what they call "Neurotrash". It is who they are. It is what they do. I described them by example and included the work of those they disagree with so as to avoid WP:UNDUE. I am not sure what else is being asked for here. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 18:37, 6 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That looks fine as a source for a statement about Gina Rippon's beliefs, as would be appropriate for her own article. It's not apparent from the source that this view is typical of the whole network (it may be, but it doesn't say that, unless I missed a bit?). To take the Sanders analogy, we could take a statement he had made and use it to support a statement about what Sanders himself believes. But, if he's standing as Democractic Party candidate for President, we can't take a statement he has made and say that this belief is therefore typical of Democratic Party presidential candidates, because it might not be. I'm not actually saying that the section should be deleted in its entirety, but I do think it needs better sourcing. Anaxial (talk) 21:43, 6 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Anaxial. It's actually quite easy to show that these views are typical of the whole network but it means using the Network as refs but the Network is a primary source. I used refs from individual members for notability and to avoid using the Network refs and quoted those that disagree with the members to avoid WP:UNDUE.

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It is worth reiterating that the section kept being deleted on the grounds that it breaches WP:MEDRS, but – on WP:COMMONSENSE grounds – I hadn't really anticipated it becoming a question of "Ah yes but how do you know they all think that way?" --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 12:39, 8 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.