The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
The result was Keep. After three weeks there is certainly no consensus to delete and the arguments for keeping outweigh those for merging/redirecting. Michig (talk) 08:22, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Not notable. Of the three sources, two are by "Blue Poppy Enterprises", who offer classes on the technique (i.e., they are not independent). The Journal article is a primary study (with acupuncture as the control) in an obscure, low-impact journal (the article itself is zero impact, see WP:MEDRS). Recommend a redirect to Acupuncture. SummerPhDv2.0 19:04, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
For a fringe medical topic such as this, we need it to have been "referenced extensively, and in a serious and reliable manner, by major publications that are independent of their promulgators and popularizers". Your suggestions:
Japanese Acupuncture: A Clinical Guide is from Paradigm Publications, "information about traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture, Japanese acupuncture and other complementary and alternative healing systems to English-speaking readers".[1] This would fall under "promulgators and popularizers".
Zhongshan Medical College mentions another author's report in one sentence, which you quote out of context. That is not extensive.
Records of the Grand Historian is roughly 2000 years old (and roughly as many pages long). I'm not sure what material you wish to include from it, I didn't dig. Certainly it cannot be a "reliable, third-party, published secondary (source) (and) reflect current knowledge."
A Practical Dictionary of Chinese Medicine also from Paradigm Publications: "promulgators and popularizers".
Chinese Acupuncture, also from Paradigm Publications: "promulgators and popularizers".
We need reputable journals saying something along the lines of "it has not been studied" or some such. Otherwise, we have something that's apparently been dismissed because sticking 500°C (above the melting point of lead) needles into skin might not pass the sniff test.
The sources you started with were no better:
This one says that fire needle acupuncture was tested on cases of "calvus" for a total of 49 "chicken's eyes" of which 38 were "stripped". Is that a biomedical claim? Google tells me a clavus is a kind of fish and chicken's eyes are exactly what you think they are.
This one apparently says it treats bi qi. Again, I have no idea what this is and google couldn't help.
Finally was the zero impact journal, which used acupuncture as the control over fire needle acupuncture. This is not "scientific studies".
With a redirect to acupuncture, we might be able to mention it exists. - SummerPhDv2.0 06:21, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, —UY ScutiTalk 19:58, 8 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to Acupuncture#Related_practices with an appropriate mention on the target page. While I could find a few passing mentions in reliable sources (e.g. the "literature search" section of [2]) it certainly falls short of notability criteria and is a honeypot for advertisers (just like the bulk of alt-med articles). Tigraan (talk) 12:44, 9 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
While there is an abundance of sources, what we need is independent sources. WP:BOMBARDing with tons of citations from primary sources is pointless. Even one good source could be enough, but it needs to be simultaneously (1) covering the subject in detail, (2) reliable, and (3) independent. Tigraan (talk) 13:48, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Two more passing mentions: The first is another from Blue Poppy, the second is another from Paradigm (both "promulgators and popularizers"). - SummerPhDv2.0 14:25, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
An independent study is any study not done by the creators or their associates. This technique is older than this generation. Even if the studies is performed by those in the field of acupuncture, studies can still by considered secondary if not done by the creators or promoters of the technique. The chiropractics, studies from within the field can be seen as secondary. Valoemtalkcontrib 04:52, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
"An independent study is any study not done by the creators or their associates." Wrong. That is an approximate definition of "secondary", not "independent"; there is a difference, see Wikipedia:Party and person. Whether such a definition was accepted in chiropractics-related Wikipedia articles is irrelevant (WP:OTHERSTUFF).
Moreover, by that definition, all sources about (say) acupuncture would be secondary since the original creator has long been dead; I would say that any person that has monetary interest in direct relation with their practice of acupuncture (needle manufacturers and sellers, practicioners, book promoters, etc.) ought to be considered a primary source as they actively take part in the activity they write about (even though they did not invent it). But anyways, even if they are somehow "secondary", they have such an obvious WP:COI that they are not independent. Tigraan (talk) 12:13, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This is a fringe medical topic. To be notable, we need it to have been "referenced extensively, and in a serious and reliable manner, by major publications that are independent of their promulgators and popularizers". The obscure pseudo-journal and the two tiny publishers are clearly "promulgators and popularizers". - SummerPhDv2.0 16:55, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
For a fringe theory to be considered notable, and therefore to qualify for a separate article in Wikipedia, it is not sufficient that it has been discussed, positively or negatively, by groups or individuals – even if those groups are notable enough for a Wikipedia article themselves. To be notable, a topic must receive significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. Otherwise it is not notable enough for a dedicated article in Wikipedia.
A fringe subject (a fringe theory, organization or aspect of a fringe theory) is considered notable enough for a dedicated article if it has been referenced extensively, and in a serious and reliable manner, by major publications that are independent of their promulgators and popularizers. References that debunk or disparage the fringe view can be adequate, as they establish the notability of the theory outside of its group of adherents. References that are employed because of the notability of a related subject – such as the creator of a theory – should be given far less weight when deciding on notability. Due consideration should be given to the fact that reputable news sources often cover less than strictly notable topics in a lighthearted fashion, such as on April Fool's Day, as "News of the Weird", or during "slow news days" (see junk food news and silly season).
I will show below that fire needling has "receive[d] significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject".
Fire needling may be considered as a combination of conventional acupuncture and cauterization, producing longer lasting effects. It is known for its effects on rheumatism and chronic problems of the back and limbs (FAO, 1 990) ...
The book has a section titled "3.3 Fire Needling". The section begins:
"Fire needling may be considered as a combination of conventional acupuncture and cauterization. This traditional method has the advantage of combining the two methods in one, therefore, its effects are long lasting. Fire needling is known for its effects on rheumatism and chronic problems of the back and limbs. However, this treatment tends to traumatize the acupoints more.
Technique: (1) Firing the needle. Use only fire needles. The needle is wrapped with ...
...
This method is usually used to bleed acupoints which are difficult to reach (medial side of the limb) or risky to the operator (distal part of the limb). Remarks: (1) The tip of the three-edged needle is fragile; precautions should be taken to prevent its damage. (2) When using wide needles, the blade of the needle must be parallel to the long axis of the vessel in order to prevent severing of the vessel.
The application of heated needles on ashi points, i.e. directly approaching the focci, as a treatment for RA, is also popular. A study on the puncture effects of ashi points between the neck and spine on 41 RA patients was done. The ashi points were matched with TE 14, LI 15, LI 14; and LI 12, LI 11 and LI 10. For those suffering from wrist pain, the matching acupoints included TE 4, LI 5 and SI 5. These suffering from lower limbs joint pain, the ashi points were matched with EX-LE 5, ST 34, ST 36 and GB 34. Those suffering from ankle joint pain were matched with ST 41 and GB 40. The control group used the same ashi puncture treatment together with oral administration of medication consisting of penicillamine, CTX and ibuprofen. The results showed a total effective rate of 91.11% in the treatment group while only 71.79% was recorded in the group. One-year follow-up also indicated that the risk of recurrence in the treatment group was also less than the control (Wu et al., 2002).
Fire Needling An acupuncture method, also called red-hot needling, pyro-puncture, or heated needling. That is, to puncture a point quickly with a red-hot needle to treat diseases. It has the functions of warming the meridians and dispelling ...
The Chinese Wikipedia article about the publisher, zh:华夏出版社, says:
Huaxia Publishing House of China is a comprehensive publishing house, located in Beijing's Dongzhimen Xianghe Park North No. 4, under the China Disabled Persons' Federation, founded in 1986.
Huaxia Publishing House in professional publishing features, both public and publishing educational publishing, publishing thematic series including economic, management, medicine, communication, Western philosophy, sociology, anthropology and so on.
Fire needling. Push the ganglion away to one side, Head the needle on the alcohol burner to red, prick the ganglion deeply, avoiding blood vessels, and squeeze the jelly fluid out.
Fire Needling A treatment in TCM. It was called puncturing with a red-hot needle in the ancient times. It refers to the therapeutic method of stimulating the affected part with a heated red pyropuncture needle. Manipulation: While aiming it directly at the affected part, insert and then withdraw the needle as rapidly as possible. Indications: large carbuncle, scrofula, neurodermatitis, numbness and pain, etc.
The Chinese Wikipedia article about the publisher, zh:人民卫生出版社, says:
People's Health Publishing (referred SATELLITE) is the National Health and Family Planning Commission People's Republic of China directly under the press, is China's largest medical publishers. It has accumulated more than 20,000 kinds of books published, mainly medical textbooks, reference books and popular medical books, covering all areas of modern medicine and Chinese traditional medicine. 1995 publishing audio and video products and electronic publications, in March 2002 set up a subsidiary company of electronic audiovisual People's Health Publishing House. There are three medical journals sponsored: "Chinese Medical Journal", "Chinese clinicians" and "Life and Health." [1]
For ah-shi point needling the Ling Shu specifically recommends the use of fire needling, although in modern practice warming needle therapy with moxibustion is also applicable for practitioners reticent to use fire needle.
Side note @Cunard: your refs are taking a lot of space in this non-Wiki format, I took the liberty of collapsing them, please revert if you feel I stepped on your toes.
Significant coverage in independent and reliable sources.
1, 5, 8 and 9 fail under "significant coverage", as they are mere passing mentions.
Independence: all refs except 2 and maybe 4 can be classified under "promoters and practicioners" as they are manuals and how-to guides. 1 and 5 are not manuals but describe symptoms and "treatments" implying a well-established medical link.
Reliable: well, I spoke my mind earlier, but for instance 4 (Evidence-based acupuncture) is pretty much as reliable as one could expect from the title.
The only potential candidate is 2, New Frontiers in Research for Sustainable Development (...), Villareal, Ruben L. (2003), and frankly from the snippet I am not impressed. I could not find the relevant publication from fao.org, and I seriously doubt that the FAO has published anything claiming acupuncture cures any kind of medical condition without a ton of caveats and warning around it. Tigraan (talk) 09:45, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'd rather not have the sources collapsed. I think the sources are all published by reliable publishers. I do not think any of the references can be classified as "promoters and practitioners" since the publishers and authors are not connected with the subject. For example, the first source, the Springer Science+Business Media encyclopedia, has an encyclopedia entry about "fire needling" that encyclopedically describes fire needling's effect, method, and indication.
The second source is published by the University of the Philippines Los Baños (WorldCat link). I do not know what it has to do with fao.org. It provides a section of discussion about "fire needling" but only the first two sentences are visible through the Google snippet view.
Fire needling is known for its effects on rheumatism and chronic problems of the back and limbs. However, this treatment tends to traumatize the acupoints more.
I believe that "fire needling" "has been referenced extensively, and in a serious and reliable manner, by major publications that are independent of their promulgators and popularizers" (quoting from Wikipedia:Fringe theories#Notability) so is notable enough for a dedicated article.
My reference to FAO was about your source #2 ("It is known for its effects on rheumatism and chronic problems of the back and limbs (FAO, 1 990)...") - which tends to imply that there is out there an FAO study of 1990 which says something like "FNA has been demonstrated to help in cases of rheumatism, chronic problems of the back (etc.)". Well, either that source exists and says precisely that (unlikely), and then an FAO official report is certainly more reliable than a series of lectures by a single researcher and more detailed so we better quote it instead, or it does not exist or was misrepresented and then we should not quote the first source at all.
I do not see that you have adressed any of my points adequately. You just claimed your sources are reliable without providing any serious evidence for it: being published is not a guarantee of reliability unless the editor demonstrably exerts significant editorial oversight (and most university presses do not do so). Frankly, in my view, any source that says acupuncture works, or worse that acupuncture has been proven to work, has a huge suspicion of unreliability resting upon it, because it goes against scientific consensus. Let me preventively add that scientific consensus ≠ truth, and if WP existed in the 1400s it would present Heliocentrism as a fringe idea, or not present it at all. None can argue with a straight face that scientific consensus is that acupuncture works.
Just in the interest of the discussion: could you point out to one source that you feel simultaneously (1) deals with FNA at a reasonable degree of detail, (2) is reliable, (3) is independent? Not multiple sources, just the best one. Per WP:MEDINDY: "If independent sources discussing a medical subject are of low quality, then it is likely that the subject itself is not notable enough to have its own article or relevant for mentioned in other articles."Tigraan (talk) 09:35, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You are mistaken this is not a medical subject, though it may have medical implications, this is a technique based on cultural tradition and Eastern medicine. Only coverage by independent sources are required. This clearly passes WP:GNGValoemtalkcontrib 23:58, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This "technique" is use to treat diseases, medical conditions and whatever "bi qi" is (still no hint on that, BTW). The article, as you wrote it, claims that it "sustains the efficacy especially on cervical headache without bony pathological changing" and discusses side effects. Wikipedia:Biomedical information includes "whether a treatment works ... side effects, benefits, and disadvantages" and "(w)hether human health is affected by a ... practice". Fire needle acupuncture is a fringemedical technique, though I'm sure we're o.k. with weaker sources for the claims about stripped chicken eyes. - SummerPhDv2.0 03:10, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
My reference to FAO was about your source #2 – the 1990 FAO report likely is not available online.
You just claimed your sources are reliable without providing any serious evidence for it: being published is not a guarantee of reliability unless the editor demonstrably exerts significant editorial oversight (and most university presses do not do so). – I assert that the sources are reliable because they are published by reputable publishers. It is impossible to determine how much editorial oversight has taken place without contacting the editors. But I do not have the editors' contact information and any information such editors provide to me through personal correspondence would be original research. And regarding university presses, Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)#Books says: "Books published by university presses or the National Academy of Sciences, on the other hand, tend to be well-researched and useful for most purposes."
could you point out to one source that you feel simultaneously (1) deals with FNA at a reasonable degree of detail, (2) is reliable, (3) is independent? Not multiple sources, just the best one. – source #3. The source discusses fire needling in a section, is published by China Agriculture Press by the Ministry of Agriculture of the People's Republic of China, and notes that fire needling is "treatment [that] tends to traumatize the acupoints more".
Source #1, an encyclopedia entry about fire needling published by Springer Science+Business Media is more concise, but covers the subject directly and in detail. From Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)#Books: "Specialized biomedical encyclopaedias published by these established publishers are often of good quality, but as a tertiary source, the information may be too terse for detailed articles." In the previous sentence, it lists Springer Verlag (which redirects to Springer Science+Business Media) as a "major academic publisher".
OK well, source #3 it is then. I have no idea whether China agriculture press/the ministry of agriculture is a serious publisher or not when it comes to medical subjects. I would tend to trust official sources on non-political topics everywhere the administration is not in shambles (China is good on that point, Sudan is not). But for that precise topic and book, claiming FNA works ("...(FNA's) effects are long lasting. Fire needling is known for its effects on rheumatism and chronic problems of the back and limbs. " — emphasis added) must be a huge red flag when it comes to reliability.
And while I did not found the FAO 1990 report mentioned (there are reports in 1990 but none seems relevant), but I simply do not see why it "likely is not available online". FAO is a UN antenna and its reports are public, and their search engine turns up results back to 1947 (!) online (it is not even a lousy pdf scan, they ran an OCR program and give it in html). Tigraan (talk) 09:32, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Merge very selectively and Redirect to Acupuncture#Fire needle acupuncture. All biomedical content (it doesn't matter if it's eastern/traditional medicine) needs sourcing that passes WP:MEDRS. Yes, there are sociological, historical, etc. topics that do not necessarily require medical sources, but anything to do with procedures, treatments, efficacy, etc. does. What the sprawling list of sources says to me is that this shouldn't be deleted, but rather included in the main acupuncture article, but I don't see a stand-alone article for this technique. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 03:55, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I think the sources contain enough information for a standalone article and that covering fire needling as a section in acupuncture might be undue weight, so I advise against a merge/redirect. Cunard (talk) 05:04, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I do not see your point. WP:UNDUE refers to dealing at length with a particular viewpoint, but FNA is a subtopic of acupuncture, so as long as it does not claim that FNA is much better we are in the clear. I suppose WP:SPLIT was what you had in mind (when a subsection of a main article becomes too large the article should be splitted when possible), but then it is a form guideline, not a content guideline; considering how short the article is right now, a merge (especially if not a full one) will not significantly imbalance the main article. If later edits do inflate the resulting section too much, it will be time to split but no need to do that preventively. Tigraan (talk) 09:42, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I do intent to add those sources after AfD. The point is the multiple secondary sources have been brought to light and there is more than enough to work with there. If we are an encyclopedia we should cover topics which have significant coverage such as this. Valoemtalkcontrib 14:01, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 20:23, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. Very few, if any, reliable sources that I could find on Google Books or Google Scholar. There are a few passing mentions in some books, but that's not enough to meet WP:GNG. I would also be fine with a redirect to acupuncture. Everymorning(talk) 21:05, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Obviously passes WP:N per sources in current version as well as some above, which can be used to flesh it out beyond a stub. WP:MEDRS (3rd para in lede) says that only biomedical content must pass MEDRS and that non-medical content in medical articles is held to RS standards. That's even more true for traditional/alt-med articles, where by definition we're (in large part, at least) outside of biomedicine. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • COI) 23:33, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Since WP:MEDRS is playing a prominent role in this discussion, and people are talking about it in contradictory ways, I've asked for clarification at WT:MED. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 01:35, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.