Talk:Single nucleotide polymorphism

Article outlines -- notjusttired (talk) 17:58, July 14, 2019 (EDT)

Please use MEpedia:Article outlines when creating new stubs, it saves a lot of work later. notjusttired (talk) 17:58, July 14, 2019 (EDT)

Delete?

User:Pyrrhus I saw you renamed this, but I have been thinking of deleting it due to lack of content, and just adding to the Terminology page so people get get a pop up explanation instead. ~Njt (talk) 10:31, October 6, 2019 (EDT)

Njt I think you raise an interesting question. This page represents an essential idea needed to understand any genetics studies, so this term must be described for readers. But should it be described in its own separate page, or in a glossary/terminology entry? This question could be asked of many many other pages as well. If there is a future section of this page that will be related to ME, it should definitely get its own page. But if there will not be any section on the page directly related to ME, maybe it would be better described in a short glossary/terminology entry, with links to "learn more". I would be interested to hear other people's opinions. User:Kmdenmark User:JaimeS User:JenB User:Hip User:Malcx User:Sisyphus Thoughts?

Pyrrhus (talk) 18:59, October 6, 2019 (EDT)

It's the same issue with a number of stubs, Antibody and Tachycardia for example. Bradycardia is already only in the Terminology page. There are many stubs from years ago with not enough content / significance to justify a separate page in my view. Most that is relevant to Tachycardia for instance will on the POTS page. ~Njt (talk) 20:23, October 6, 2019 (EDT)

Separate pages rather than a pop up explanation works slightly better from a user experience angle when using mobile devices, and certainly for accessibility of screen readers etc. But it does spoil the flow slightly as it takes you 'off page'. Malcx (talk) 08:19, October 19, 2019 (EDT)

Re: Delete? -- Hip (talk) 19:08, October 6, 2019 (EDT)

I believe the idea of MEpedia is that it is hope it will grow slowly, so many pages may start out as stubs, but hopefully gather volume over time. If you look at Wikipedia, this is exactly what happened: in the early years articles were very minimal, but they slowly expanded over the years. So stub articles on important subjects I think should be kept. Hip (talk) 19:08, October 6, 2019 (EDT)

I'm in favor of leaving the page as is, also. This page may blossom as more genetic research in ME/CFS is done. Kmdenmark (talk) 17:35, October 7, 2019 (EDT)

OK. What about Antibody, an entirely blank page, and Tachycardia (one line) - both are now in Terminology. ~Njt (talk) 06:14, October 8, 2019 (EDT)

I think it would be better to delete the pages and have them in terminology only. Kmdenmark (talk) 15:57, October 8, 2019 (EDT)

Interesting. Would be willing to explain your rationale Kmdenmark? What made you change your mind, if you changed your mind? When should a page without any section related to ME get its own page? When should a page without any section related to ME be put in glossary/terminology only?

Pyrrhus (talk) 22:49, October 10, 2019 (EDT)

When should a page without any section related to ME be put in glossary/terminology only?: Some pages/articles were made solely to define a term used in other pages/articles and they only had one or two sentences. I think they are perfect candidates for the Terminolgy page.

What made you change your mind: When the Terminology template was added, it seemed an easier way to fulfilled the need to define terms used on other pages than creating separate pages for each. It also solves the headache of finding the term in other articles and adding a hyperlink.

When should a page without any section related to ME get its own page? That's a hard call. I personally think that every page should relate to ME or the reader's understanding of science to better understand ME, but I know some people want the site to be more expansive. Some pages about other illnesses serve the purpose of comparing/contrasting with ME, so I believe they have relevance. Whether a page has merit as a stand-alone page depends on the editors currently involved at the time of the decision-making.

After working on MEpedia for three years, I've seen editorial decisions made, reversed, and made again by different groups of contributors, so I think that things end up working themselves out. Some editors take the discussion to our Facebook page to get consensus.

What is your preference regarding what merits placement on the terminology page vs having a stand alone page? Pyrrhus and Njt Kmdenmark (talk) 17:09, October 11, 2019 (EDT)

My thoughts are about whether it is a topic with adequate info on ME/CFS to write about, or whether it's likely to be useful to people looking to topics eg potential treatments with little evidence but recommended by others. Antibodies seems like a general science topic. I would be happy to have more opinions on this (and more help with the Short Pages). I also wonder about the relevance of pages like "Coffee Enema".

Also the Terminology page adds a tooltip for those words - but that is disabled if the words are linked to, so that's why I removed the links. So at the moment we at least have antibody or Antibodies looked up. The original page was totally blank - seems some years ago one of more editors created many wanted pages without any info at all except perhaps a category. ~Njt (talk) 17:23, October 11, 2019 (EDT)

Thanks so much for the feedback User:Notjusttired User:Malcx User:Hip User:Kmdenmark! This is some great feedback, and I think this is an important question to try to forge a consensus on. I hear people say:

1. It would be nice to restrict pages in MEpedia to those that have some direct relevance to ME, and any pages without direct relevance might be moved to the glossary/terminology page.
2. Stub pages that don't currently have any section related to ME may have a future section related to ME, so they should be kept.
3. There may be readability issues to consider when comparing "pop-up" explanations compared to links to separate pages.
4. Restricting pages in MEpedia to those that have some direct relevance to ME may represent a significant change to the current expansive scope of MEpedia, and might require approval from MEAction.
5. However, whether a page is considered directly relevant to ME depends upon whom you ask, and any decisions on this point may be reversed by future editors.

So, my summary is that people agree that all pages in MEpedia should have direct relevance to ME, but people do not agree on whether specific pages are or will be relevant to ME. I thought that Single nucleotide polymorphism would be an ideal page to move to a glossary/terminology page, but Karen feels that the page might have more relevant sections added in the future. Njt felt that Antibody would be a good page to move to a glossary/terminology page, but I think that this page will have many future sections related to ME, discussing studies on antibodies found in ME, the role of auto-antibodies in ME, the differential immunoglobulin subclasses in ME that have led some patients to receive diagnoses of Common Variable Immune Deficiency (CVID), etc.

There is also the separate question of what to do about pages that only have one or two sentences, not even long enough to be considered a stub page. I believe that there is an existing consensus that these pages can be deleted with the understanding that they may be recreated at some point in the future, so they should be left as "wanted pages".

Here are some things we might consider doing:

1. Ask MEAction to add a section to the Editorial Guidelines saying something like: "All pages in MEpedia should be relevant to ME. For new pages, you can explain the relevance to ME in a section titled 'Relevance to ME and/or CFS'. If a new page covers an essential concept needed to understand other pages, but does not itself have relevance to ME, its content can be placed in the Glossary instead of creating a new page. Note that other people may consider a page to be relevant even though you may not see the relevance, so be sure to consult other editors if you feel that a page may not be relevant."
2. Update some Article Outlines to include a section titled 'Relevance to ME and/or CFS'.
3. Merge the Glossary and Terminology pages, if possible.

That's all I've got!

Pyrrhus (talk) 21:48, October 20, 2019 (EDT)