Talk:Breast cancer awareness/Archive 5

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DR/N

The current Dispute resolution Noticeboard filing has been opened and is awaiting comments and replies from those participating. If the dispute has been settled and resolved, please let us know at the filing.--Amadscientist (talk) 05:22, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

I will be closing this DR/N in 24 hrs if no further comment by other participants is made, and suggesting further discussion take place here on the talkpage, with an RFC suggested for any content disputes still ongoing ( if they are ongoing with no further input by anyone else). Thanks and happy editing.--Amadscientist (talk) 06:40, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for helping. RfC will likely happen soon. The inner circle quote was removed, and the text presents it as a metaphor. At least we have some decent success. Charles35 (talk) 06:56, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
I have replaced the "inner circle" point because it is a valuable and evocative metaphor for what BC survivors pass through - both in terms of their health and pain, and in terms of the social capital it results in. A more extensive comment can be found here. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 16:00, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
How about the compromise of deleting the quote, and identifying it as a metaphor? The quote wasn't there at the beginning, at it was added to over-satisfy the concern that the idea wasn't identified as a metaphor. The quote is undue weight and the metaphor itself is bizarre. Keep the idea. Sound good? Like you said, you added the quote in response to my objection. You may find my arguments unconvincing, but I find yours unconvincing as well. Thus, compromise. Charles35 (talk) 21:23, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
I don't feel strongly about it, but overall I think that the quote adds something useful to the article. I don't think that it's undue weight. Three sentences plus one brief quotation on a major question (of social status as well as social capital; I wonder whether we could WP:Build the web to that article here?) is not really undue weight. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:00, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
I prefer the quote, as I've said. I do not think it is undue weight, I think it is, as I have said, illustrative and evocative. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 01:49, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
Well, that's great. On the other hand, I don't prefer it, and I think it's undue weight. Why is it that you believe your opinion matters more? Why don't you give any weight to the opinions of others? Charles35 (talk) 01:13, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
Why do you think your opinion matters more? Where have other editors weighed in and given their explicit opinion on the matter? I'm open to starting a new section and requesting opinions, and if that doesn't work, starting a request for comment. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 01:50, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
I don't think my opinion matters more, which is exactly why I've suggested a compromise, several times. Why do you project your own beliefs and desires onto me? I'll repeat, for the nth time - my opinion matters the exact same as yours, WLU. Understand? Charles35 (talk) 06:56, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
Do you want to make the inclusion of the quote an explicit section at the DRN, or would you prefer a RFC on this talk page? WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 13:57, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
Do what you want. A section at DRN sounds good with me. Charles35 (talk) 16:56, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

A RFC has been left at the DRN. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 17:12, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

As a minor note, when the two sides are "include the quotation" and "do not include the quotation", there really isn't a meet-in-the-middle compromise. The quotation is either there or its not. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:37, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Feminism and the breast cancer wars

Advocates have said that breast cancer is special because society's response to it is an ongoing proof of the status of women and the existence of sexism (Olson 2002, pages 195–202; Soffa 1994, page 208).

This doesn't really make sense, semantically speaking. Could whoever wrote this edit it? It's a confusing sentence. Charles35 (talk) 00:21, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Feel free to tag with[clarification needed]. Biosthmors (talk) 00:24, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
It seems clear to me, so I don't know what to clarify. What do you think it says, or should say, or might be misinterpreted as? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:40, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
When I read it, it sounds like it's saying that BC is special due to the fact that it serves as proof of sexism. Is that what it's supposed to say? I just wanted to confirm, I'm not trying to do anything malicious. Charles35 (talk) 05:12, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
Clarifying who the advocates are might help, but the point it seems to be making is that the lesser care and standard given to breast cancer prevention and treatment (and survivors) indicates breast cancer is somehow less important than other types of cancer. Not having read the sources, would "test" be a good substitution for "proof"? The latter implies a current state of affairs, the former indicates the potential for this state of affairs to change. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 16:44, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, I would agree with "test". But again, that is not having read the sources. Either way, the sentence is really confusing. Are you sure it's supposed to say that the importance of BCA is the fact that it serves as proof? It doesn't have any more importance than that?!?! Charles35 (talk) 07:01, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
Breast cancer was a test case for medical patriarchy, and one of the areas where feminist activists took great pains to become more involved in treatment and decision making. Soffa indeed specifically describes the condition as a societal test case for sexism. My preview for Olson doesn't cover the page range specified, but I would not be surprised if it made such statements. May I suggest you get a copy and review the page range? If you think the source is misrepresented, it's really up to you to find the source and demonstrate this, claiming you don't think the text is appropriately verifed based purely on personal disbelief isn't valid. I have attempted to clarify the sentence. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 13:55, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
Charles, you're right: breast cancer is special to feminist advocates (not necessarily medical/treatment/cancer advocates; WLU, I think we'll need to fix your recent attempt to label the advocates) because society's response to breast cancer proves that society is still sexist. In other words, it actually means what it says and what you thought it said. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:42, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
Have a go at changing it, I'm not averse to my prose being ruthlessly edited. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 01:58, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Pictures

Added some pictures, any thoughts? WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 02:00, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

No objections. The chemo/fingernails one was not the size recommended by the MOS; I've set it to the automatic size. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:16, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Breast cancer culture

Health care professionals are sources of information, but the rightness of their advice is not to be seriously questioned.

This is NPOV and sounds a little bit like direct advice (ie "you shouldn't question them"). I'm going to change it to "the BC culture does not question them". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Charles35 (talk • contribs)

You have missed the point. The point in the source is not merely "the BC culture does not question them", but also that "the BC culture tells patients not to question them". WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:34, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
You missed my point. I heard that loud and clear. Charles35 (talk) 06:19, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
You did not write a sentence that says this. You wrote that the culture does not question them, not that the culture tells patients not to question them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:34, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
The emphasis on cheerfulness allows society to blame women for developing breast cancer

I'm changing this to "allows women to feel blamed". Society doesn't actively blame the women. It just (supposedly) creates a paradigm in which women might feel blamed. But there is no actual active blaming going on. Charles35 (talk) 20:32, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

The only thing that change does is introduce poor writing style. You've moved unnecessarily into the passive (because society can and does blame people), you've missed the idiom (people feel condemned, not blamed), and you've introduced a grammar error (subject–verb mismatch). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:34, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
Do you hear yourself? I could fix an apostrophe and you'd have 4 different problems with that. Honestly you're discouraging me from editing wikipedia. It seems like nobody is allowed to make any edits but you. All material is wrong unless it's been passed through you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Charles35 (talk • contribs)
Please remember to sign even small comments on the talk page.
If you actually fixed an apostrophe, I'd certainly agree with you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:39, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
The cure for cancer was therefore psychotherapy

I am adding the date for this and creating some links to psychosomatic illnesses. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Charles35 (talk • contribs)

The existing sources say that it was prevalent through at least the 1970s, and that this discredited idea informs the current (=2012, right now) beliefs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:34, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
Breast cancer culture values and honors suffering, selecting its she-roes by a "misery quotient" (Sulik 2010, page 319).

This is over the top, taints the article like inner circle and countermovement, undermines wikipedia's credibility, etc. Can you please add some more material about the "misery quotient". Currently there is no info about it except for the context of Ehrenreich's Illuminati shoot-off. It just sounds kind of like a term that whoever added it is proud of and thinks is clever but there's nothing to really say about it. Since there's really nothing to say right now, I'm going to change it to get rid of the term yet keep the idea (amount of misery they have experience). This gets rid of the empty term but keeps the idea. Please don't reinstate without adding some material about it to make it a worthwhile mention. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Charles35 (talk • contribs)

I'm sorry that you don't like it. Go read the source if you want more information about it. There's no point in removing a memorable term. Good encyclopedic writing does not mean using the most boring, forgettable language you can devise. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:34, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
Empty, pointless, provocative and shock-inducing terms that are meaningless due to a lack of explanation are poor encyclopedic material. Some readers might not recognize the (fringe) theory here and might believe that people are actually calculating a quotient based on suffering and misery to select women to consider sheros. Charles35 (talk) 06:35, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
There's nothing at all provocative or shock-inducing about the term itself. It is surprising, at least to those who haven't thought about it, that people honor suffering, but that surprise will remain no matter what words you use to describe it.
Also, a term can't be "empty" if it conveys meaning. If it doesn't convey meaning, then it's impossible for it to be provocative or shock-inducing. People are not provoked or shocked by meaningless words. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:39, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
"Honoring suffering" is different than a "misery quotient". The word "quotient", as I'm sure you already know, at the most fundamental level, refers to the answer of a division operation. Thus, the term, in any context, implies a "calculation". When you say "misery quotient", you are saying that someone is calculating misery. This is not true. Plain and simple. It sounds like some shocker term used by some sensationalist Fox newscaster. Charles35 (talk) 01:01, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
I say that it is meaningless because there is nothing "extra" about it that couldn't be accomplished with a less severe term. There's no point of adding this sensational term that means nothing more than "values suffering and misery", as you put it. It implies that there is more to it and that it represents a whole construct. This may very well be true, but the article speaks of no such construct. This is why I said at the beginning of this that I would find the term acceptable if you were to elaborate on it and explain the rationale behind it. But if there's nothing else said about it, and it could be accomplished with less suggestive and severe words, then we should use something like "values suffering and misery". Charles35 (talk) 01:04, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
I don't believe that "quotient" is "severe". I do believe that it adds something "extra": it is memorable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:35, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
women with breast cancer who express anger or negativity are corrected and disciplined by other women with breast cancer and members of the breast cancer support organizations

"Disciplined" is a little severe. I'm not going to change this but I'd like to call attention to it and see if anyone else has any thoughts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Charles35 (talk • contribs)

I think it's accurate in its severity, and also in its precise meaning, which is more closely aligned with training than with retribution/punishment. See part of what Sulik says: "Women have been “kicked out” of support groups and chat rooms for being unenthusiastic, angry, or depressed. Some women have told me that their doctors reprimanded them for having a negative attitude if they questioned medical authority or voiced concern about treatment." That's a pretty severe reaction to the normal stages of grief. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:34, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
Appearing unattractive — such as going out in public with a bare, bald head if treatment causes temporary hair loss — transgresses the approved, upper-class style of pink femininity and provokes shaming comments from strangers.

This article continually focuses on only the negative. Ehrenreich doesn't say anything about "shaming comments from strangers" or "appearing unattractive", or "sentimental kitsch" (all of which I am removing), and actually has very different things to say than this article claims. This article poses the "spiritual transformation" in a bad light as if it is hypocritical et al negative things and engages in some serious cherry picking. Ehrenreich thinks it's much more neutral and even positive. Read this paragraph, which I thought was refreshing to read:

Not everyone goes for cosmetic deceptions, and the question of wigs versus baldness, reconstruction versus undisguised scar, defines one of the few real disagreements in breast-cancer culture. On the more avant-garde, upper-middleclass side, Mamm magazine -- which features literary critic Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick as a columnist -- tends to favor the "natural" look. Here, mastectomy scars can be "sexy" and baldness something to celebrate. The January 2001 cover story features women who "looked upon their baldness not just as a loss, but also as an opportunity: to indulge their playful sides . . . to come in contact, in new ways, with their truest selves." One decorates her scalp with temporary tattoos of peace signs, panthers, and frogs; another expresses herself with a shocking purple wig; a third reports that unadorned baldness makes her feel "sensual, powerful, able to recreate myself with every new day." But no hard feelings toward those who choose to hide their condition under wigs or scarves; it's just a matter, Mamm tells us, of "different aesthetics." Some go for pink ribbons; others will prefer the Ralph Lauren Pink Pony breastcancer motif. But everyone agrees that breast cancer is a chance for creative self-transformation -- a makeover opportunity, in fact.

I'm incorporating some of it. I'm deleting the entire sentence because Ehrenreich says nothing of the sort (that I can find). If you disagree, DO NOT simply revert. Take the effort to add the material back because reverting will take away the material I added. Charles35 (talk) 22:07, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

We don't repeat sources multiple times every time an idea is mentioned. You need to go read Wikipedia:Citation overkill#Needless repetition of citations. All the stuff about being "unattractive" is cited earlier in the article (Sulik, page 35–45). For an example of shaming comments from strangers, read the anecdote on page 345. That's an egregious example. See page 262 for another example of the type of rude remarks made by strangers. The book is sprinkled with examples of this unfortunate behavior. If you know anything about disabilities, you'll know that rude, embarrassing, degrading, and shaming remarks are par for the course.
On the other hand, Ehrenreich says quite a lot about sentimental kitsch. The word sentimentality appears in the very first paragraph: "Almost all of the eye-level space has been filled with photocopied bits of cuteness and sentimentality: pink ribbons, a cartoon about a woman with iatrogenically flattened breasts, an "Ode to a Mammogram," a list of the "Top Ten Things Only Women Understand" ("Fat Clothes" and "Eyelash Curlers" among them), and, inescapably, right next to the door, the poem "I Said a Prayer for You Today," illustrated with pink roses." She later talks about "suffocation by the pink sticky sentiment embodied in that bear and oozing from the walls of the changing room."
If you were to describe Ehrenreich's reaction, I suspect that words like these would figure in your description:
  • overdone or excessive,
  • sentimental,
  • appealing to low-brow or popular tastes,
  • low quality (e.g., "photocopied bits"), and
  • decorations of questionable artistic value.
And if you'll go look up the word kitsch in a dictionary, you'll find those very words used to define it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:02, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
You act as if I haven't read these rules. I've read that page several times over. Thanks though. I added a lot of good info that you thoughtlessly reverted. Don't do that. If you need to have "kitsch" in the article, please, as I already warned, do not revert all the other things I added. You didn't give the article a "makeover". You just reverted it back to your edition. You cherry pick too hard. And you need to repeat sources when the material has been challenged. Sorry. This is why I've said ref tags are easier, but no... Charles35 (talk) 04:02, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
I didn't thoughtlessly revert so much as a comma. I have good reasons for every single change that I made. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:07, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
No you didn't have good reason for many of them. I wish you'd try working with instead of against and cooperate since this is becoming very unpleasant. Charles35 (talk) 06:16, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
You are entitled to your opinion of my reasoning, of course, just like I'm entitled to my opinion of your "reasons" for excluding memorable phrases, preferring the passive voice, and desire to water down the viewpoints of the reliable sources to make the article sound positive and optimistic. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:49, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
The material I added was good and was completely accurate considering it was mainly a quote from a source that YOU chose. Why did you have to add more material in response? It's as if you were trying to discount the material I added. There was no reason to add even more negative material. Why can't you be the least bit positive? This article already has all of your mean thoughts made many times over. It is a big cherry that has been picked. I was very pleasantly surprised to read more of Ehrenreich's article. Charles35 (talk) 06:16, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
Ehrenreich's description of responses to baldness, e.g., by getting tattoos, is a minority viewpoint. We can include it, but getting tattoos is not actually common (and frequently can't be done for medical reasons). Most women who lose their hair due to treatment buy wigs or wear scarves and hats to hide it. There are whole programs at most of the major cancer organizations to pay for the supplies, fit women for wigs, and otherwise support them in hiding their baldness. There are none that advocate for tattoos, and few that actually provide support to women who want to go bald. While individual women do make these choices, the culture (=what this section is about) does not endorse that choice. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:49, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
Please provide quotes that support the material that you say is un-sourced. I don't necessarily not believe you. If you provide quotes to the supporting texts, then maybe I would, but I couldn't find anything in Ehrenreich's article that supports those sentences (I'm talking about kitsch and baldness). If you're trying to convince me that your Sulik citation from earlier in the article applies here, then I say that you shouldn't repeat the material. Almost every point in here has been repeated several times. Charles35 (talk) 06:35, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
If the page focusses too much on the negative aspects of BCA, feel free to expand the page with reliable sources that illustrate its positive and beneficial nature - if Ehrenreich has such sentiments, it's an adequate source to use. Also, Charles, please stop assuming every single change that is made is motivated by spite. It is not. The experienced editors who you are working with are taking pains to discuss why they make the changes they do, and reviewing them diff-by-diff. Consider that other editors also believe this page is very unpleasant to edit, in large part because your talk page postings are accompanied by a significant number of accusations of bad faith. For instance, I see absolutely no evidence that accusing WAID of having "mean thoughts" in anyway improves the page, or does anything but add acrimony. You can change that by working from the assumption that your fellow editors simply disagree with you - and a civil discussion or neutral request for comment is the best way to deal with these disagreements. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 15:46, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Charles, I don't recall saying that there is any unsourced material related to kitsch or baldness. Can you help me figure out what you're talking about? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:49, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

The going out in public, unattractive bald head, and shaming comments from strangers were not in the sources. If you find them, please let me know. But please do not add the material back in the article and cite it with pages 260-310. Since this has happened multiple times, and since last time it happened it wasn't in the 10 page range you gave, either, I would appreciate it if you would just quote the source or give the exact page number for each claim before you add it back into the article. Oh, and kitsch is fine, you're right there. Charles35 (talk) 00:16, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
Okay, let's start with basic wiki-functioning: if you run across a sentence that says "Blah blah blah—foo foo foo—blah blah", and you personally believe that the "foo foo foo" bit is unverifiable, then you shouldn't be removing all of the "blah blah blah" along with it. You can, however, add a {{fact}} tag to just the "foo foo foo" bit. The reason that we use such tags is so that people have an idea of what you're talking about.
Do we agree that the "Appearing unattractive...transgresses the approved, upper-class style of pink femininity and provokes shaming comments from strangers." part is adequately sourced? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:42, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
No, we don't. As I have repeated several times, Sulik says nothing about (1) "shaming comments", (2) "appearing unattractive in public", and (3) "baldness". PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not go and cite 10 more pages from a different part of the book to support this. You did that once before when the material didn't support the source, and when I went and checked the new pages, they didn't support the source either. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE simply quote the text from Sulik that supports the sentence if you want to cite different page #s. Charles35 (talk) 01:08, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
I don't know what else you could be referring to (with "foo foo foo"). Those are the only parts of the sentence. There is nothing else to challenge. No part of the sentence appears in those pages of Sulik. Charles35 (talk) 01:10, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
Sulik discusses shaming comments by strangers on page 261-2 in my version of PRB. The search inside feature for some reason is not turning up page 261 where it states "I regularly heard women's concerns about self-image and social interactions that reinforced feelings of shame." (emphasis added) Which is odd, normally I can see a snippet of a non-previewed page. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 11:25, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
Okay, WLU, this has been stated multiple times. If "shaming comments" is in the source, that doesn't make it okay to also add "appearing unattractive" and "baldness". Also, "social interactions" are certainly different and of lesser form than "shaming comments". "Social interactions that reinforce feelings of shame" can be entirely non-verbal, like most human communication. Also, the source says nothing about "strangers". "Social interactions" could be talking about friends and family members even.
Would you be able to change the text to say "Social interactions often result in feelings of shame"? How does that sound to you? Does it cover everything while still keeping integrity with the source. Charles35 (talk) 16:19, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
...and when I have time to check the rest of the text for references to baldness and lack of attractiveness, I will do so. Page 262 discusses specific shaming comments, by strangers. If you don't trust my assessment of the source, feel free to get and read the book itself, WP:COPYVIO precludes us including lengthy quotes, and I don't want to bother typing them out. Based on the skimming I've done of some sections of the book, I would not be at all surprised if it verifies this text. I will revisit the section (again) when I have the time to read the pages in detail. This feels like a tremendous amount of effort and hairsplitting resulting in minimal actual changes to the page, few of which really seem to add a lot of value. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 16:29, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
The text I proposed is 8 words. That's not long. It's also not close enough to be considered a copyright violation. Those are important changes. Charles35 (talk) 16:39, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
I don't think that "Social interactions often result in feelings of shame" explains the content of the social interactions. Some social interactions, namely those about the woman's treatment-disfigured appearance, provoke shame. Other social interactions, and quite possibly most of them and therefore not necessarily those happening most "often", do not provoke shame. That's why appearance needs to be connected to the shame here.
(WLU's statement about copyright violations is his explanation of why he's not typing up whole pages from the book so that you can see what the source says. It's not about your proposed addition to the article.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:35, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
The section I read definitely linked the feelings of shame to the survivor's appearance. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 01:56, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
Where is this section, WLU? Your changes must be verifiable. Also, like my last comment, I have no idea where you guys are with this sentence. I see you added page 262 to the citation, WhatamIdoing. Can you say what part of that page supports this sentence, how you were able to link the two together reasonably, etc? Again the key components are (1) shaming comments, (2) appearing unattractive in public, and (3) baldness. Can you let me know what page 262 says (the relevant part)? Thanks. Charles35 (talk) 04:52, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

recent changes

WLU, can you get rid of this change? I'm not sure why you removed part of the quote. But it was a good quote and it's completely valid material. [1] Charles35 (talk) 16:07, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Rewritten though I think the inclusion of three specific examples by three individuals is bad writing and I don't think the quote really helps the page. I may remove. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 16:22, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
Please don't remove. It's a valid quote. I like the fact that it is giving real life examples of some positive things. This article has an abundant amount of examples of negative things. Why not balance it out a little? You say I will meet no opposition when I try to add positive material, yet whenever that happens, you go to lengths to limit it and reword it to appear more negative. I find this especially ironic since this is a source that you like very much. Charles35 (talk) 16:28, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
It feels like a quote is being added merely because another quote exists, which isn't really a great way to write a page. The important point is that some women use their treatment to transgress boundaries, challenge their expected role as patient and use the situation as a chance to re-invent and play with their appearance. The idea is there, I don't see the quote as enhancing it and I don't want to play horse trading over quotes. I'll see if it grows on me. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 16:34, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
Okay, but if it doesn't "grow on you", that doesn't allow you to simply remove it because you don't own this article. The quote is valid material. If you care about my reasons, I put it there not because there is another quote, but because that is very memorable and specific - "tattoos of panthers and frogs". I didn't think I could do a decent job at summarizing it. It's fantastic positive material. Charles35 (talk) 16:42, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
Lastly, I'm not sure if this is in the source - "...like a blue toy car, is unthinkable" - I object to "unthinkable". WhatamIdoing quoted Ehrenreich's sentence. I can't seem to find that quote right now, but if I recall correctly, it does talk about blue toy cars, but says nothing about as strong as "unthinkable". Could you change it to "is not seen" or something like that? Charles35 (talk) 16:38, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
Sure, but you don't get to add it because you also don't own the article. Again, this is editor judgement and if editors disagree it can be kicked to DRN or RFC. The quote is related to the subject and from a reliable source - but the decision to include it (whether it is "valid") is editor judgement. For me the most evocative and positive part of the quote is the refernce to the sensuality one woman feels about her baldness - but again it's a quote of three individual women's experience which makes it much less compelling to me. While Sulik and Ehrenreich are making broad generalizations about the shame experienced by women transgressing feminine ideals and the overall culture that has an initiation-like approach, this is three women's experiences quoted directly.
To find the context of the toy car reference, search for "matchbox" and read the whole paragraph. "Unthinkable" is a reasonable choice of words, but I've reworded. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 16:59, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
Again, WLU, I think you legitimately do not understand how entitled you think you are to this article. Arguing with you is literally pointless. Charles35 (talk) 21:43, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
I don't mind the quotation, as long as the unusual responses aren't presented as normal.
I do find it a little weird to read here that head tattoos and shock wigs are "positive". Tattoos carry a significant stigma in most of the world, and shock wigs are supposed to be shocking. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:48, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, I don't know if you really see what "positive" means here (although, on second thought, I wouldn't really use the word "positive" to describe this, so I guess we created a false dichotomy didn't we?). Anyway, it's not positive in the sense of positive thinking or optimism or moral values or something like that. It's positive in the sense that it portrays BC patients in a independent, strong, fulfilling light, as opposed to the rest of the material, which we consider "criticism" and generally deem it "negative". Charles35 (talk) 04:36, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I can't even begin to catch up on all of the above material that has been posted lately. Maybe you guys have a good reason for this, maybe you don't, which is why I'm asking. I still don't think it's okay to say "the shero regains her femininity". Again, Sulik, in the text, is talking about the services offered by Reach to Recovery. She said nothing related to a social construct (ie shero). So, is it just that you are really proud of that sentence, or is there a real reason (other than "you haven't read the book so you wouldn't know - that doesn't count)? Charles35 (talk) 04:43, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

  • Sulik is talking about what society wants and expects from the ideal patient (a feminine appearance). The name she later gives to the ideal patient is the "she-ro". It is therefore exactly the same thing, even though she doesn't use that term on that exact page, because she doesn't define the term until later in the book. At this point, it's still the ideal patient, without the particular name. But it is exactly the same thing. The only thing that changes as the book gors on is that she introduces a new term for the ideal patient, and then uses them interchangeably.
    Society does not want survivors to have a radical, butch, or independent appearance. The societally approved options are traditional feminine (full makeup, nice hairdo, pink/frilly/flowery clothing, and two breasts) or for younger survivors what you might call "modern feminine", meaning sexy (definitely two breasts). That's who society provides free breast prosthetics through these programs rather than free head tattoos.
  • You'd already know all this if you read the book. It will almost certainly be available at your local library. Worldcat lists more than 800 libraries that carry it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:19, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
You're missing my point. You said that shero = ideal patient. I assumed that in my post. Since shero is a social construct, and it is identical to "ideal patient", then "ideal patient" is a social construct as well. The entire point of my post was to say that she is not talking about a social construct. Drop your "stopping searching for the word shero" act. The part of my comment that said this -> She said nothing related to a social construct. My point is that she isn't talking about a social construct, shero or non-shero. Sulik is talking about facts. She is describing the Reach to Recovery program. If you are translating info about this program, you can't say "the shero regains her femininity." No. The individuals who used the Reach to Recovery program may very well have "regained their femininity", but she speaks of no such shero, or any sort of ideal patient or other social construct. I have it right in front of me. It's pretty cut and dry; there isn't much interpretation. Charles35 (talk) 06:55, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
No, the she-ro/ideal patient is not just a social construct. The source does not say that the she-ro is just a social construct. That's your own original belief.
Sulik is not describing just the Reach to Recovery program on those pages. Sulik is describing what the existence of, and aims of, the Reach to Recovery program tell us about what the culture's requirements for breast cancer patients are. In other words, Sulik is telling us what R2R's existence proves about the she-ro. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:27, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
Shero is a social construct. You change your mind on these issues every 3 days. Everyone agrees that it's a social construct, and it should not be presented as fact in the article. Charles35 (talk) 22:07, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
The she-ro is not just a social construct, and social constructs are facts. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:40, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

WLU, I remember you making this edit a while ago. The sentence makes no sense, grammatically speaking. I see no way of fixing it. I thought about deleting it but I don't think that's necessary. Could you fix it?

The practice of blindly wearing or displaying a pink ribbon without making other, more concrete efforts to cure breast cancer has been described as a kind of slacktivism due to its lack of real effects (Landman 2008), and compared to equally simple yet ineffective "awareness" practices like the drive for women to post the colors of their bras on Facebook (Borrelli, 2010)
There is no grammar problem here. The sentence, stripped to its bare structure, says "The practice has been described as X and compared to Y." WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:27, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Ownership

Whatamidoing, the things you do are becoming a big problem. You don't let anybody else edit the article. Everytime anyone makes a change, you freak out and revert every single word. You even reverted my change from "one-quarter" to "25%". I'm sorry I made that change. I don't see why it's such a big deal. But you don't let anyone else edit the article besides you. You aren't allowed to do this on wikipedia. It's against the rules. Please step aside and let others edit this article. You are of course free to have your input and make changes within reason, but you freak out everytime someone makes a change and revert all of the changes. I'm asking you to stop. Please realize that we aren't trying to destroy your work. Also, you citation methods that you prefer are questionable which raises more concerns. Lastly, you push information that isn't in the sources you cite, which isn't allowed and is a key feature of ownership. I'm asking you nicely to stop it. Charles35 (talk) 22:13, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I explained why I changed even that seemingly unimportant change as being potentially misleading to the reader. I don't freak out when you make changes. I believe you are trying to improve the article. The problem is that most of your attempts to improve the article are not actually improvements.
My citation methods are standard on Wikipedia, and there isn't anything in this article that isn't in the sources I've cited. Per standard citation methods, though, there are facts in individual sentences that aren't supported by the page number cited at the end of the sentence, because we normally only cite a given fact the first time it appears in an article. That keeps us from having to provide a citation every time the word "mammal" appears in Elephant, or, in this case, every time the words "fear", "hope" and "goodness" appear in this article (which is a lot, in case you haven't looked). WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:33, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

::....until I challenge it. Charles35 (talk) 00:08, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

No, when the material is already cited elsewhere in the same article, your challenge fails. You can't say that the fact that an elephant is a mammal is cited in the first section, but now I'm going to "challenge" that same fact in the next section. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:27, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
If we are just talking about "fear hope and goodness", then okay I understand and I would agree with that. But I am weary about setting precedents like these. Charles35 (talk) 05:55, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
Do you mind if we change to footnotes? Charles35 (talk) 00:15, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
Yes, for the same reasons already explained to you in detail last month. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:27, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
And the point is that you discourage everyone from editing this article. Wonder why the DRN thought there was a user retention problem? You put in an RfC and some new users come only to find you reverting all of their edits. Now we probably won't see them again. You ask for help, and then it's unwelcome? Notice how every single editor to get involved here thinks this article has problems? Charles35 (talk) 00:41, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
I haven't started any RFCs. Very few new users except you have ever attempted to edit this page. I have not asked for help from you or any new editor. And I don't notice that anyone who has bothered to read the sources believes that the article has problems. See, e.g., WLU's recent comment that just from reading the first chapter of Sulik, he's discovered that I have actually correctly represented her book in this article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:27, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
  • I'm thinking that this article would be better off if both main editors left it alone. This article is a POV nightmare (the main editor seems to think that "childish kitsch" is a neutral term (I put that in quotes in the text, mistakenly thinking that no Wikipedia editor would use those terms), and this talk page is even worse. TLDNR. Actually, I did read a bunch of it, and I've come to the conclusion that this article would be better off if both main editors left it alone. Drmies (talk) 04:37, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
    Kitsch is discussed at length above. Did you read the source? Did you consider the actual definitions of the word kitsch, e.g., overly sentimental and low-quality? It's a very accurate summary of the actual source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:44, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Doesn't matter, as exciting as that section is. It's not a neutral word, and your style of writing does not reflect a source, it reflects you. You should start just about every sentence with "Sulik says", really. If non-neutral language were used, our article would make clear that this is someone's position. Whether that position is valid or not is another matter--I happen to agree with Sulik--but it should not be presented as neutral fact. Thank you. Drmies (talk) 04:50, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
  • It does matter. Editors are supposed to write in their own words. Childish kitsch are the words that occurred to me to describe photocopied bits of sentimental poetry and baby toys. You seem to think that it's even accurate. So why not say so? "Neutral" doesn't mean finding a positive-sounding word for decorations and gifts that the source found offensive. "Neutral" means faithfully representing the source. IMO "childish" and "kitsch" are words that faithfully represent the source's view. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:10, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
Drmies - I am only editing material in the context of text-source integrity. I am not pursuing other collaborative means as we unfortunately have not been successful so far. I think it's a pressing issue that much of the cited material does not reflect the source, so that is all I'm focusing on.
WhatamIdoing, can you please tell me why you don't want footnotes instead of parenthetical? I am still not quite sure. Please be explicit. Charles35 (talk) 05:54, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Alright, I am done with the talk page general discussions. It's going to lead us nowhere but more discussions. Sorry for taking up bytes. No more. Maybe I'll leave some words here and there but I will let others lead and lay low for a bit. Charles35 (talk) 06:29, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Media

This section has issues. It starts off "although more women die from lung cancer..." Seriously? Are we really starting off a section on breast cancer with a fact about lung cancer. Better yet, are we really starting off a section critically when the main purpose of this article is not to be critical? Charles35 (talk) 05:27, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

  • Charles, this is not the way to go. You keep harping on individual points, getting yourself and others riled up. If you can't stop editing, do something more helpful, like at some noticeboard. An RfC would be a good idea, but you might find yourself under scrutiny as well. I'm telling you, though, this continued commentary will not improve the article or your own standing--if it weren't late, I'd ask right now for both of you to be topic-banned from the article. Drmies (talk) 05:53, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Okay. Well I wasn't trying to make that a personal attack or anything. I was just trying to get their opinion and draw their attention to it as they seem to be devoted to improving the article. However, I just checked the citation there and none of that paragraph is in the source... Charles35 (talk) 05:57, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

  • On this talk page there's 339,765 bytes of that. If you want to make something of it, start an RfC: shit or get off the pot, as some would say (not me, of course). This is going nowhere--the two of you are just wasting electrons. Tell you what, ask Bbb to look at my possibly sarcastic and overblown comments; I saw a note on your talk page. Ask them if they think I have a point. I am going to come back to this place (and the article history) in a little while to see if this continues in the same vein, and if it does, I'm going to do something about it: this is not productive. Sorry, but this has to stop at some point. Nothing personal against either one of you. Drmies (talk) 06:03, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Citation concepts

This keeps being a problem, so let's deal with it head-on. Citations are provided to support material in the article. Citations are not supposed to be provided every time you repeat information in an article. This kind of thing:

Elephants are large land mammals[1]... Elephants' teeth are very different from those of most other mammals[1]. Unlike most mammals[1], which grow baby teeth and then replace them with a permanent set of adult teeth, elephants have cycles of tooth rotation throughout their entire lives.
1. Christenson, Chris. (2010) An exhausting list of mammals

is stupid. We don't do that. It's generally enough to cite a given piece of information once per an entire page.

So Charles has recently asserted that this sentence:

Symbolism itself does not improve health, but it is an effective form of promoting the pink ribbon culture: fear of breast cancer, the hope for a scientific breakthrough, and the goodness of the people who support the cause.

contains unverifiable information about the pink ribbon culture, because the citation at the end of the paragraph, which is supposed to cover the new material in the paragraph, rather than the material that is just being repeated (for clarity's sake) from earlier in the article, does not support the claim that the pink ribbon culture involves fear, hope, and moral goodness.

I agree: the citation for the new material in this paragraph does not happen to support the old material. It's not supposed to. You are supposed to be smart enough to say, "Gee, I remember reading about hope, fear, and moral goodness just two sections ago; I'll bet that the source for that particular phrase is elsewhere in this article."

Now, if we are really not able to cope, then we can have an RFC and find out whether the community really wants every mention of the words "fear", "hope", and "goodness" to be separately cited in this article. But I hope that this won't be necessary, because we already have well-established and respected advice pages that tell us not to do that (the elephant example is taken from one), so I believe that the RFC would only be a waste of other editors' valuable time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:36, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing. Your citation methods are questionable. They blur the lines and they make it difficult to tell which material is cited. There are obvious POV issues with this article. And the fact that you revert or change just about every single edit that anyone makes to this article says something here. You can't have everything the way you want it. If the material is challenged or likely to be challenged, you must have a direct citation. Trust me, nobody is challenging material as simple as "elephants are animals". I only challenge material that concerns me with regards to WP:NPOV. And it seems like you think you own this article. You don't. Charles35 (talk) 22:05, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
Yes, you have to supply inline citations to support material that is likely to be challenged. But you do not have to supply that citation every single time that material appears in an article. You only have to supply the citation once.
You assert that nobody is challenging material as simple as "elephants are animals". Actually, someone once WP:CHALLENGEd a statement that the human hand normally has four fingers and a thumb. And just like here, the challenged material only has to be cited once, not every time that the material appears on the same page.
Like I said, if you want to have an RFC to find out whether the community actually means what the community says about this at the MINREF page, then please let me know. In the meantime, I believe that you're smart enough to know that when "fear", "hope" and "goodness" are cited earlier in the page, that they really are cited in this article, even if those page numbers are not copied to every single instance of those words (which, you know, I could do if you wanted... but do you really think that would help the reader? Because whether or not I duplicate the page numbers from the earlier citation at that particular point in the article, the phrase is verifiable and your WP:CHALLENGE will fail). WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:38, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
It's inexpedient for me to read all of that, but I'll tell you this - if it was just "people are afraid of breast cancer", then yeah sure that's pretty obvious; I have no problem with it. But when it's "the pink ribbon culture cultivates hysterical fear of the disease for selfish financial gain", then I have a problem with that and I want to see a citation. Charles35 (talk) 01:24, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
It doesn't say that the "culture cultivates hysterical fear of the disease for selfish financial gain". It says that the culture includes a fear of breast cancer. And if you will go read the article, you will see that this is discussed several times, and the citations are already there.
Alternatively, you can go search the text of the book and find that the exact word fear appears on no less than 38 pages (more than 10% of the book's text), and that there is a major section discussing this cultural values triad on pages 133–145. But if you really, really want, I am perfectly capable of adding those page numbers for the third(?) time to this article. Personally, I don't believe it's necessary.
But your removal of two-thirds of the triad is wrong. Here's the sentence:
it is an effective form of promoting the pink ribbon culture: fear of breast cancer, the hope for a scientific breakthrough, and the goodness of the people who support the cause.
Notice the colon (punctuation). We are not promoting "the pink ribbon culture and moral goodness; we are promoting the pink ribbon culture which is a belief in fear, hope and goodness. Your revision (deleting fear and hope) is wrong and biased because it singles out one co-equal aspect while removing the ones that you dislike. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:23, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Unconventional referencing style

The parenthetical referencing version of an in-line style used in this article has been raised previously, e.g. here, as unconventional although I do accept that the articles use of referencing is internally consistent. One editors view that the style being used here makes it easy for the reader to see that one author is being cited more than once is sound. However, I contend that this style is not using the power of linking to its full effect nor is it allowing the reader to easily see how often a given author is being cited within the article.

To see what I mean, examine the notes section of this article. You can quickly see that the editor has cited Johnson 1893 and Warren 1997 many times with some Peacock 1965 and others. In addition, clicking on the linked circumflex alongside (e.g.) reference "37 ˆJohnson 1893, p. 16" (in this version of the article) takes the reader to that place in the text, in this case at the end of the sentence "The rioters had in the interim stolen a wagon and horses from Mr Henry Tansley and equipped it with fowling guns front and back". Remaining with citation 37 in the text, the target for the linked number 37 is the notes section. Remaining in the notes section, the target for the linked "Johnson 1893" of "37 ˆJohnson 1893, p. 16" is "• Johnson, C (1893), An account of the Ely and Littleport riots in 1816, Littleport: Harris" in the bibliography.

I suggest that the use of a more conventional in-line style might make it easier to get this article featured in the future. A quick look at five featured articles on medicine reveals that four use footnotes, a more widely implemented version of an in-line referencing style: Acute myeloid leukemia, Tourette syndrome, Huntington's disease and Menstrual cycle. One of the five examined uses shortened footnotes: Birth control movement in the United States. I am not aware that any of the current 6,498 featured articles use parenthetical referencing, although I am sure someone will correct me.

Converting this article to use shortened footnotes would be very easy and could even be accomplished in one edit by asking an expert in the use of regular expressions. Each occurrence of a reference, e.g. (King 2006, page 2), would be replaced by an {{sfn}} template, giving e.g. {{sfn|King|2006|p=2}}. Such a reference is auto-linked to the existing reference (bibliography) section. The article is already configured with a notes section, which is where {{sfn}} would put the references. In all other respects the article would be unchanged although I might suggest changing References to Bibliography. Even easier would be converting (King 2006, page 2) to <ref>King 2006, page 2</ref> with the disadvantage that this method does not produce a link to the bibliography from within the notes section.

Your thoughts?

--Senra (talk) 13:07, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree. The hyperlinks are valuable. GabrielF (talk) 15:33, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
Just letting you know, the main argument against changing the citation style is that it would violate WP:CITEVAR, but please correct me if I'm wrong. Basically, we shouldn't change the style unless we have consensus. This is a sound reason to "not change the citation style without a consensus", but I don't see it as a reason to "not change the citation style". As far as I can tell, there is no argument for why parenthetical is preferred over footnotes. The main argument I've heard is that parenthetical is preferred, and we should not change it without a consensus due to WP:CITEVAR. Charles35 (talk) 03:24, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
Your circumlocutory response has me baffled, Charles35. Do you Agree or Disagree with my above proposal? --Senra (talk) 10:20, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
Oh, sorry. I was just trying to not be abrasive or anything like that. I wanted to just point out that fact and let you do with it what you will. I would agree with changing to footnotes. Charles35 (talk) 17:38, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I oppose the proposed change.

  • Most people do not read the references section. Most people read only what is put right in front of them. Therefore they actually see "(Smith 2001)" and they see [1], but they do not see the "Smith 2001" that is hiding behind the [1]. This is the primary reason why parenthetical citations are superior to ref tags for this article: it forces the reader to see that we cite the same articles and books multiple times, rather than letting him assume that 50 superscripted numbers means that we have cited 50 different publications. I oppose any formatting style that hides the names of the sources' authors behind superscripted numbers.
  • This is the citation style most appropriate to its academic field (which is sociology, not medicine). It is commonly used in academic journals for this subject.
  • The style is acceptable for FAs. Actuary and Irish phonology are both featured articles that use this style. The regulars at FAC actually know something about citations styles beyond what's most common on Wikipedia, and they do not oppose this style. (I have no intention of proposing this for even GA, because too few editors really believe that a neutral article should not reflect the unverifiable opinions they believe are held by the genral public or their social circle rather than only the views in published, reliable sources.)
  • If you want hyperlinks between "Smith 2000" and the full citation, that can be implemented in the current style without adding ref tags. It's a usability trade-off: adding hyperlinks adds technical complexity that will prevent some inexperienced editors from trying to improve this article. Right now, all they need to know is how to type, not how to code Mediawiki links. To do ths, you just change "Smith" to "[[#Smith|Smith]]" and add an anchor at the citation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:04, 22 December 2012 (UTC)


I'd like to offer an example that illustrates my issue with parenthetical citations. It gets back to the basic difference between a parenthetical citation representing an entire paragraph and a footnote representing just a sentence. I made a recent change to the article (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Breast_cancer_awareness&diff=529365724&oldid=529362966) in which I removed a sentence. That sentence was the last one in the paragraph. There was only one citation in that paragraph, which was at the end. The entire paragraph was supported by the cited source except for the last sentence. I thought it was unwise to simply remove an entire sentence just because it "isn't in the source", so I thought to add a "not in citation given" tag. However, if I were to do this, that would imply that the entire paragraph was not in the citation given, or at least an unknown amount of the paragraph. Parenthetical citations are inexact and blurrly. In this case, the first 2 sentences were in the source, but the last one wasn't. The first 2 did not have citations themselves. Had I removed the last sentence and not realized that the parenthetical citation was also covering the first 2, then the resultant 2 sentences would appear uncited.
Citation overkill is often cited as the main reason against adding a parenthetical citation to the end of each and every sentence. I think this is a valid concern, as it would make the article difficult to read. However, if we were to change to footnotes, it would not be a problem. Elsewhere on wikipedia, there is a footnote at the end of every sentence. That isn't overkill.
If the fact that 2 FAs do parenthetical is a strong argument, then the fact that 3767 FAs do footnotes should be a lot stronger. Plenty of other sociology articles use footnotes (and are featured).
It's very convenient to hover your mouse over the footnote and see the entire citation. I don't know much about citation coding and links, but putting the citation between <.ref.> and </.ref.> is not difficult and is easier than doing the whole "cite web" thing. Charles35 (talk) 05:22, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
There is no such "basic difference between a parenthetical citation representing an entire paragraph and a footnote representing just a sentence". The only difference between the various types of WP:Inline citations is their appearance. If you'll go read Wikipedia:Inline citation#Citation density (again?), which directly disclaims and discourages a one-citation-per-sentence rule, you'll find this example:

Education researcher Mary Jones says that there are three kinds of students. The first group is made up of students who do their homework as soon as they receive the assignments. The second group contains students who do their homework at the last possible second. The third group is composed of students who didn't even realize that they were supposed to do the assignment (Jones 2010, page 2).

Changing to ref tags does not change anything at all except the appearance:

Education researcher Mary Jones says that there are three kinds of students. The first group is made up of students who do their homework as soon as they receive the assignments. The second group contains students who do their homework at the last possible second. The third group is composed of students who didn't even realize that they were supposed to do the assignment.[1]

That's it. That's the only difference between the two citation styles. If you can't figure out how much is supported by the citation using Harvard/parenthetical citations, then changing the parentheses into ref tags is not going to help you even a little bit.
And, yes, citation overkill is a problem when you go sentence by sentence, even with ref tags. Various people have proposed it, and it's been shot down repeatedly. I even asked the folks at FA about the ideal standard for citation density myself a while back, and I was told that the actual ideal is the fewest number of citations possible (but no less than that number), not one per sentence. It is normal for FAs to have a few paragraphs with no citations (especially the lead) and to have multiple paragraphs with only one or two citations. There's even a system called "citation bundling" whose sole purpose is to limit ref tags to one superscripted number per paragraph, no matter how many sources are being cited in it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:08, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
Maybe in the letter of the law, they are technically the same thing, but common practice does not reflect it. Typically, we put footnotes at the end of each sentence in other articles. This article, and the example I gave, go to show that it is common practice to use parenthetical citations to cover an entire paragraph. Citation overkill isn't as much of a problem with footnotes, regardless of what the policy says. If material is challenged or likely to be challenged, we must have an inline citation, and that means that we must have an inline citation for most sentences in this article. Therefore, we will have to use a lot of citations. In that case, footnotes are a better option. Charles35 (talk) 16:25, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
Also, Some articles (e.g., articles about controversial people) will require inline citations after nearly every sentence. This article is one of those. In that case, footnotes are better because they take up much less space. And finally, in citation overkill, they seem to typically be talking about 6+ citations. In fact, it says that "A good rule of thumb is that one footnote after a sentence is almost always sufficient...but more than three should be avoided as clutter." Charles35 (talk) 16:44, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

I have taken the liberty of having a trial citation style conversion of the article sent to my user-space. To me at least, the notes section of this version demonstrates clearly why there is still a {{POV}} hat attached to the article. In particular, if the notes section of this trial conversion is examined, it can be seen that there is a heavy reliance on Sulik (2010). I would suggest that this is unhealthy to say the least. I propose that we modify the citation style of this article accordingly. Whilst I am here, I set out my answers to WhatAmIDoing's opposition ...

  • "Most people do not read the references section": not agreed due to lack of supporting evidence
  • "This is the citation style most appropriate to its academic field": agreed in and of itself. However, Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia [sic] not an academic paper
  • "The style is acceptable for FAs.": agreed though I never said it was not acceptable, merely that it was unconventional
  • "If you want hyperlinks between "Smith 2000" and the full citation, ...": It is not what I want. It is up to consensus. In any case, your proposed non-standard solution would be much harder for other editors to maintain

--Senra (talk) 17:14, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

  • Citing half of the article to the highest quality, academic source that you have found is not a sign of bias. It's a sign of following your best sources, even if your best sources don't line up with the biases of editors or readers.
  • Whether a given passage requires one citation per sentence is not based on whether the sentences convey material that differs from the opinions held by the editors or the general public. As clearly demonstrated in the example at WP:IC#Citation density, it depends on whether a reader will be able to figure out that the material is all on the same subject. Four non-controversial sentences on separate subjects require four citations. Four extremely controversial sentences clearly on the same subject do not. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:56, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support changing citation style to footnotes per Senra.--Amadscientist (talk) 20:54, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Support changing citation style as well. GabrielF (talk) 23:51, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

I am more than grateful for the support shown above, thank you. Whatamidoing? Do you still oppose the proposed change? Do you have a reasonable alternative suggestion to put forward that addresses the issues initially raised in this section? --Senra (talk) 00:34, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I still oppose it. I don't mind links to the citations, but I oppose burying the parens down in a separate section.
The mess you've created has mushed the explanatory footnote into the same section as the sfns. This is wrong, and should not have been done. Furthermore, there's now a mess of linkrot-susceptible bare URLs in there, which never would have happened if we'd stuck with the original style.
And, finally, WP:CITEVAR says that this change is "To be avoided: Switching between major citation styles, e.g., switching between parenthetical and <ref> tags..." and that "if there is disagreement about which style is best, defer to the style used by the first major contributor." So I think your assertion that there is "a consensus" is plainly wrong, and that the change should not have been made.
I apologize for being offwiki for most of the last two weeks with family matters and then being ill. I do wish that you had considered what it looks like to see that you couldn't wait for the Christmas holidays to be over before trying to push through your proposal, knowing that I strongly opposed it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:19, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
I am sorry you still oppose this change which is now complete after reaching consensus. The bare urls have been added since the converted version --Senra (talk) 00:23, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Summary and action

Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.

— Andrew Jackson quoting Napoleon Bonaparte, Millman, Dan (1992). No Ordinary Moments. H J Kramer. p. 101. ISBN 9780915811403. Retrieved 24 December 2012. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)

I am reluctant to count votes as I would prefer full agreement. Nevertheless ...

I will make a request at AutoWikiBrower/Tasks to change the citation style of the article to shortened footnotes using {{sfn}}.

--Senra (talk) 00:48, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

 Done See AutoWikiBrowser/Tasks#Consensus reached --Senra (talk) 11:22, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Is a pink ribbon a universal symbol of breast cancer awareness

The caption under the image of a pink ribbon in the article states: "A pink ribbon, a universal symbol of breast cancer awareness". I accept that the pink ribbon could be an international symbol of breast cancer awareness but is it really a universal symbol? (subscription required): Please note that the below links may require a subscription. Also note that I have used Gale's own MLA 7th Edition citation style below for my own copy-paste-from-source convenience

--Senra (talk) 04:34, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Sources like this book say things like "The universal symbol of breast cancer awareness in recent years has been the pink ribbon". We aren't saying that pink ribbons have no uses except as the symbol for breast cancer; they have had other uses, such as pink tape to tie up legal documents in the UK, and I rather suspect that a lot of girls like to wear pink ribbons in their hair. But since multiple reliable sources directly say that it's the universal symbol, then I think that we can and should, too. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:17, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
Mayer (1978) is a 14-year-old North American treatise which appears to make passing reference to the, at the time, six-year-old pink ribbon breast cancer awareness campaign. You have provided no evidence to support your assertion that "... multiple reliable sources directly say that [the pink ribbon] is the universal symbol [of breast cancer awareness]". It is a concern that using the word universal in this context is puffery and not appropriate for a global encyclopaedic [sic] audience. Better would be to remove universal from the caption but acceptable would be to replace universal with international. I serve notice that I shall be doing just that unless consensus develops soon against such a change. For completeness: "Universal A. adj. 1. a. Extending over or including the whole of something specified or implied, esp. the whole of a particular group or the whole world; comprehensive, complete; widely occurring or existing, prevalent over all." "Universal". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)(subscription required) --Senra (talk) 13:24, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
Here, let me google that for you: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22pink+ribbon%22+%22universal+symbol%22
See those results? I'd say that almost 100K ghits on "pink ribbon"+"universal symbol" counts as "multiple". What do you think? Do you think that a number that is fifty thousand times two counts as more than one? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:53, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
I am finding it hard to continue to assume good faith after receiving such a pointed response from you but nevertheless I will. As you suggested, I entered "pink ribbon"+"universal symbol" into a google.com search. I may have obtained different results from you. Here are mine ...
I have deliberately refrained from classifying each of the above top five results except to say that if I was asked, I would find it hard to mark any of these five as reliable sources. I leave proper classification as an exercise for the interested reader. For me, this result would call into question the quality of the rest of your "100K ghits" arising out of your search term. Therefore, until you can provide reliable sources for your assertion that "... multiple reliable sources directly say that [the pink ribbon] is the universal symbol [of breast cancer awareness]", I will boldly replace universal in the caption with international unless consensus develops soon against such a change --Senra (talk) 20:02, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

 Done in this edit --Senra (talk) 21:37, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Is this actually that hard for an editor with three years' experience? Do you know how to get out of random websites and over to Google Books, where you'll find books like these?
Your hostility to making even basic efforts to comply with WP:PRESERVE on minor matters like these makes me wonder why you are here. The material is plainly verifiable, and therefore you should self-revert. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:09, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
I have an idea for this sentence that I think might settle your disagreements. From the very beginning, I have said that I think this sentence should be changed to "a universal symbol" instead of "the universal symbol". I think it's feasible that it might be a universal symbol, but to say absolutely that it is the universal symbol, no ifs ands or buts, is wrong in my opinion. I think both of you might be satisfied with "a universal symbol". Senra, you can always add another universal symbol to it if you'd like. Charles35 (talk) 22:24, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
How many other symbols for breast cancer awareness can you name offhand? If the answer is "none" (and that's my answer: I can't think of another one), then calling it "a universal symbol" is misleading, because it falsely implies that others actually exist. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:18, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
  • No. If it were, your source, published by Illinois UP, wouldn't say "a universally recognized symbol". I'm with Senra here: "the" is not warranted, no matter what your Google search (which didn't account for the exclusivity of "the") may say. Drmies (talk) 02:58, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
This issue is resolved. Why are we re-addressing it again here? --Senra (talk) 23:39, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
Because WP:Consensus can change is a fundamental policy, and because "I made a change without anyone else's agreement, while the primary other participant in the discussion was known to be off wiki" does not consitute "resolving" an issue. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:03, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
I am so sorry you have been ill and that you have been off-wiki. I do hope you are better now. I do however notice that you have been able to edit in other areas of Wikipedia between the 28 December 2012 and 5 January 2013. I consider this issue is now closed --Senra (talk) 00:14, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I've been able to keep up with about one-tenth of my usual work, which doesn't mean that I have time for major disputes like this one.
It is the policy of the English Wikipedia that WP:Consensus can change. The issue is not closed merely because you are satisfied with the current state of the article. There is no good reason not to use the original caption, which said "A pink ribbon, a universal symbol of breast cancer awareness". (NB that it said "a", not "the", even though nobody can think of any others.) You removed that because you thought it was not universal. I've demonstrated that it verifiably is recognized a "universal" symbol. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:30, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
My initial post on this subject listed four sourced reasons demonstrating why the pink ribbon is not universal. You seem to be intransigeantly refusing to understand the global perspective by providing only North American sources that mention your preferred term. You have not even acknowledged that our pink ribbon article itself, at least as of a few minutes ago, has said that "the pink ribbon is an international symbol" since 14:27, 22 November 2006 nor have you answered Drmies (talk · contribs) when that editor said

The term "universal" is a rhetorical one; we don't know if breast cancer occurs elsewhere in the universe and while it's accepted hyperbole, I suppose, in some of the sources it should not be used here, especially not since it only adds to the advocacy flavor of the article

— 17:53, 23 December 2012 (archived 15:50, 30 December 2012)
I suggest we are done here my friend --Senra (talk) 23:41, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
Are we still talking about this? Yes, this matter is over. Whatamidoing, there is no benefit to your continued reiteration of these complaints: it is disruptive. It's already hard enough in this article. Drmies (talk) 01:04, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
There is a benefit to getting the article right, which means including appropriate information. If you would like to propose a non-discussion method for determining whether universal is a verifiable and encyclopedic description of this symbol, then please let us know. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:42, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
Senra, in looking at your sources, I think that you have confused "universal" with "exclusive". The pink ribbon can be the (or "a", if you prefer) universal symbol of breast cancer without prohibiting other people from using pink ribbons for other purposes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:42, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Footnotes

Why are there a bunch of urls as footnotes that should be explantory instead? Biosthmors (talk) 02:28, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I moved the linkrot-susceptible bare URLs from the Notes section to the Footnotes section in response to this. I hoped to reduce clutter in the Notes section (it looked like this) and I also expected that the editor(s) who had created the bare URLs would fix them --Senra (talk) 11:13, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, senra. I was not sure how citations are supposed to work here. Usually, with ref tags, from what I've seen, it's just a full regular citation like the ones you'd do in real life (ie something like this: Doe, John. "Title." Example, Inc. Last modified January 10, 2013. Accessed January 10, 2013. http://www.iana.org/domains/example.). What should I have done? Charles35 (talk) 17:13, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
Not a problem. There are two parts to this: one full citation in the references section and one or more shortened footnotes in the body of the article which are automatically collected in the notes section. For example:
  • Use any of the citation templates to construct a citation in the references section. Make sure there is a both a |date= or |year= and a |ref=harv parameter. Do not include a single page number parameter but you can include a page range; page numbers will be cited in the body. See for example {{cite book |last=Sulik |first=Gayle |title=Pink Ribbon Blues: How Breast Cancer Culture Undermines Women's Health |url=http://books.google.ca/books?id=7WG5VzIzOAwC |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |location=New York |year=2010 |oclc=535493589 |isbn=0-19-974045-3 |ref=harv}}
  • In the body, I find it easier to use the {{sfn}} template, but there are other methods. At each place in the text where you wish to refer to the citation, add your {{sfn}} template. For example {{sfn|Sulik|2010|p=38}} (single page) and {{sfn|Sulik|2010|pp=157&ndash;210}} (range of pages)
--Senra (talk) 18:56, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Note: I am going to provide full citations for my recent edit. I don't have enough time right now, but please give me 5 days to do so. Charles35 (talk) 19:07, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Susan Love

Charles deleted accurate material here. Here's a short excerpt from the cited source:

Love also expressed strong opinions about the role of gender in science and medicine. Surgical oncology, especially breast cancer surgery, was far from an exact science. "Often," she preached, "the result is that the values of a white, middle-aged man are imposed on a patient who is female and maybe older or younger, maybe white and maybe not." To an older widow, Love recalled, a young male surgeon recommended removal of the breast: "Well, you're elderly and you're widowed — you don't need your breast anymore."

It goes on with other examples, but WP:COPYVIO can be a problem, so I'll stop there.

Presumably the problem is that Charles didn't actually get his hands on the book, and instead tried to look it up online. Specifically, the problem is likely that Charles tried to look it up on Google Books, which misreads the fancy font they used for page numbering so that page 198 is recorded as page 498 by Google Books.

Please correct the erroneous removal of this verifiable and important information about the role of gender in providing suboptimal breast cancer care (in previous decades). WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:35, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

  • I don't know what "removal" you're referring to, but I will take your word for it about what the source says, and I have removed the tag. Drmies (talk) 00:57, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
Charles, we're citing a specific edition of the book (by ISBN), so please put the page number back to that edition. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:30, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

the pie chart

The pie chart is not cited. I thought about finding a citation for it, but that would be cherrypicking because it will be implying a conclusion that is not stated in the source. The article seems to be implying the conclusion that awareness for BC is undue compared to more mortal diseases. I have been unable to find a citation that connects stats about the leading causes of death in women to (risks of too much) breast cancer awareness. I also think that the issue is more complicated than the pie chart makes it seem. For instance, BC might only cause 2% of deaths while heart disease / stroke might cause 32%, but researchers and scientists might feel confident that more research (a product of awareness) can result in a lower death toll compared to research into heart disease / stroke. There are other factors that might complicate it further. I am not aware of them, which is why we need a reliable source in order to imply this conclusion that awareness for BC is undue.

Thus, I am going to boldly remove the pie chart. Please discuss here if you disagree. Charles35 (talk) 02:40, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

If the point is made in reliable sources discussing BCA that death rate from BC is lower than death rate from other common conditions, then we can make that point, and we can use a pie chart to illustrate the point. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 04:32, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
While there are certainly sources that state the mortality rate of BC compared to other diseases, I have not found one that says that awareness for BC is undue because of its lower morality rate. I think that including the pie chart is an instance of cherrypicking because we are clearly implying such a conclusion (especially since it occurs in the "Risks of too much awareness" section), which is not attributed to a reliable source. Charles35 (talk) 04:51, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
The pie chart is supporting that section's claim that, because of its high visibility, most women significantly overestimate their personal risk of dying from BC, which is what the source says: "One result of the pink movement is that many women have an undue fear of breast cancer [...] They often underestimate heart disease, the No. 1 cause of death among women with 400,000 a year, 11 times as many as breast cancer. Lung cancer also surpasses breast cancer deaths." (citing Tampa Bay Times, who cite Samantha King). We say what the source says. Illustrating that point with the pie chart is fine. Please do not delete the pie chart unless you can find a consensus to do so here. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 08:15, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
@Anthonycole: In this instance I cannot agree. Ave (2006) does indeed report "... 400,000 a year, 11 times ..." but those are the only figures in her article and even those figures are unqualified; 400,000 in which country? When? The figures in the pie-chart at the time of writing are un-sourced. They cannot be sourced to Ave. It might be possible to source the entire chart to King but I cannot confirm that as I do not have King. I recommend citing one or more sources for the figures in the chart (as appropriate) or removing the chart entirely from the article. In the meantime, I suggest leaving the chart in the article, along with the {{fact}} tag, for one month then remove it if no source(s) found after that --Senra (talk) 11:39, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
No, I think it should go and I'll tell you why. a. it seems like little more than an opportunity to stick a statement about the relative death toll in a very visible place (that's the Ave statement, which has nothing to do with the pie chart and only relates to it by way of the POV argument). b. I can say that because the pie chart itself is so poorly done. First of all it's not done properly--it's done terribly. Colors should clearly contrast (do you see a dark line between red and pink?), pie sections really should be marked within the section by number or percentage, sections should be organized clockwise in descending order. c. it is not properly explained or sourced. For starters: "women"?? which women? American women? Western women? Women world-wide? And which age category--all ages? No, this chart needs to go--Anthony, please look at it again and consider reconsidering. Drmies (talk) 15:23, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
If you, Charles or anyone have any concerns about accuracy of the percentages in the pie chart or about the populations involved or currency of the data, by all means remove it or leave the "fact" tag. (I've seen a couple of sources that put first world deaths from BC at 3%, so presume the pie chart's 2% is a global figure.) I was just addressing Charles's point about the relevance or appropriateness of the chart for this article in light of what the source says, not its accuracy. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 15:27, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
Just for the record, the citation needed tag was added 12 days ago. And again, while Ave does comment on the relative percentages between BC and heart disease, the source does not give these numbers, and thus any source that does give these numbers without explicitly stating the conclusion that awareness for BC is undue or that "most women significantly overestimate their personal risk of dying from BC" cannot be used per WP:SYNTH IMO or possibly WP:CHERRY. Charles35 (talk) 17:21, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
My suggestion for keeping the chart, now struck per Drmies, was based on trying to be reasonable; giving editors time to find the sources. @Charles: There are plenty of sources stating that women do over-estimate the risk of breast cancer, such as Woloshin et al (1999) or McLachlan (2002), but that is not the point. The point is that this pie-chart contains figures which have not been sourced. I now suggest that the pie-chart be removed --Senra (talk) 17:46, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
Well, the McLachlan source is specific to Australia, and the Woloshin source says that women don't necessarily over-estimate the risk. They suggest that this conclusion is due to loaded, suggestive, open-ended, or just faultily phrased questions. Charles35 (talk) 18:47, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
The pie chart was discussed in November here (with source named) (and elsewhere). Charles supported it unreservedly then. Personally, I think the better choice is simply breast cancer vs heart disease, which is what the original, simple bar graph had and what the cited source directly compares.
Drmies has removed, "Because breast cancer is a highly visible disease, most women significantly overestimate their personal risk of dying from it." This is a theme in multiple sources, but the cited source says "One result of the pink movement is that many women have an undue fear of breast cancer." I don't think that this is POV or argumentative or significantly exceeds the source (which has more to say than the one sentence), and given how much effort certain people have put into trying to censor any sentence about fear, I thought tjis was a reasonable paraphrase. We can provide all sorts of sources to support these facts: PMID 12800051 "Research has shown that women tend to overestimate their breast cancer risk". PMID 21565527 "There was a clear tendency for respondents to overestimate the proportion of women who will develop breast cancer during their lifetime". PMID 15155594 "When women’s perceived breast cancer risk estimates were directly compared with their personal Gail scores (Method A), the majority of women (n = 506; 74%) were classified as over-estimators". There is no doubt that this fact is accurate and verifiable in multiple, high-quality, peer-reviewed medical publications.
If you'd like a more accessible news story on the subject, which I won't strongly object to, since 'what people believe' isn't exactly "biomedical information", then this one directly connects this overestimation to breast "cancer awareness campaigns" and to work being done "to help people understand their true risk of dying from the disease".
(While we're on the subject of how poorly informed the general public is, keep PMID 23149525 in mind: "90% of participants overestimated the effect of breast cancer screening" and PMID 19671770 "The vast majority of citizens in nine European countries systematically overestimate the benefits of mammography".) WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:08, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
Pie-chart: Based indirectly on WhatamIdoing's link and believing that WHO (2004) is WP:RS in this context, why don't we simply cite WHO (2004) as the source and keep the pie-chart? That is providing the figures are in compliance with WP:CALC, which they appear to be --Senra (talk) 00:35, 22 January 2013 (UTC) But my goodness, WhatamIdoing. There was no need for your bloated discourse
There are two issues here. One is the chart itself, and one is a sentence that Drmies removed that was connected to the pie chart. If you'd like, we can create a separate section for the sentence. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:38, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
I was naive and I was trying to compromise with you. I guess I am not a very effective compromiser. As of now, I think the pie chart is problematic. Charles35 (talk) 05:07, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
I think you should spend a little while researching your premise that BC awareness is not undue. I'll start you off with this link to a very pro-oncology trade rag. Skip down to the section titled "Creating Awareness, Creating Fear". Think about what that source is saying, things like:
"Ask women what disease they are most frightened of," continued Dr. Bluming. "They will most likely say breast cancer, not heart disease, which is by far more of a threat. From a data point of view, this does not make sense."
Notice, too, the people who hold the different viewpoints. The "awareness is always good" folks aren't researchers. They include a Komen educator and survivor who writes for a website. The people saying that awareness does create fear are researchers and physicians. Do you think that a professor of medicine might be a better, more reliable source and a more relevant viewpoint than the personal opinion of a single patient? WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:37, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
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