Talk:Chiropractic/Archive 25

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 This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
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Contents


Philosophy 2 rewrite

Although a wide diversity of belief exists among chiropractors,1 they share the principle that the spine and health are related in an important and fundamental way, and this relationship is mediated through the nervous system.2 Chiropractors pay careful attention to the biomechanics, structure and function of the spine, its effects on the nervous and musculoskeletal systems, and the role these systems play in preventing disease and restoring health.3

Chiropractic philosophy goes beyond simply manipulating the spine. Like naturopathy and several other forms of complementary and alternative medicine, chiropractic assumes that all aspects of a patient's health are interconnected, which leads to the following perspectives:4

  • Holism treats the patient as a whole, and appreciates the multifactorial nature of influences (structural, chemical, and psychological) on the nervous system, recognizing dynamics between lifestyle, environment, and health.
  • Conservativism carefully considers the risks of clinical interventions when balancing them against their benefits. It emphasizes noninvasive treatment to minimize risk, and avoids surgery and medication.3
  • Homeostasis emphasizes the body's inherent self-healing abilities. Chiropractic's early notion of innate intelligence can be thought of as a metaphor for homeostasis.1
  • A patient-centered approach focuses on the patient rather than the disease, preventing unnecessary barriers in the doctor-patient encounter. The patient is considered to be indispensable in, and ultimately responsible for, the maintenance of health.1

Chiropractic's early philosophy was rooted in spiritual inspiration and rationalism. A philosophy based on deduction from irrefutable doctrine helped distinguish chiropractic from medicine, provided it with legal and political defenses against claims of practicing medicine without a license, and allowed chiropractors to establish themselves as an autonomous profession. This "straight" philosophy, taught to generations of chiropractors, rejected the inferential reasoning of the scientific method,1 and relied on deductions from vitalistic principles rather than on the materialism of science.4

As chiropractic has matured, most practitioners accept the value that the scientific method has to offer.1 Balancing the dualism between the metaphysics of their predecessors and the materialistic reductionism of science, their belief systems blend experience, conviction, critical thinking, open-mindedness, and appreciation of the natural order. They emphasize the testable principle that structure affects function, and the untestable metaphor that life is self-sustaining. Their goal is to establish and maintain an organism-environment dynamic conducive to functional well-being of the whole person.4

Comments on Philosophy 2 rewrite

This version tells a story and is concise. It will capture the reader. The long and repetitive mainspace version is very boring to read. QuackGuru 18:18, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

The figure isn't needed and can be removed, so I removed it. That was the only change from the previous draft, so this draft is now equivalent to what is in the previous draft. I suppose it can be further edited now, but as I said before, this is low priority for me. Eubulides (talk) 22:20, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I like this draft much better than what's up now. I understand the point about priorities, though. --—CynRN (Talk) 23:47, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Is there anything worth merging from the current vague mainspace version. QuackGuru 16:50, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't see anything. Eubulides (talk) 00:39, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

ref

copied the references so there is no confusion on the rewrite. --AdultSwim (talk) 22:48, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

renaming scientific research

If we are going to rename the scientific research section I suggest we rename it with something that starts with Evidence such as Evidence basis. QuackGuru 16:20, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Does a section on safety really belong under the heading of Evidence basis though? I am not sure I understand the problem with calling it Scientific Research. DigitalC (talk) 10:38, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Archiving

As this page was over 600K (enormous, even by ANI standards), it was well past time to archive. There is an automated archive bot already set up on this page, but it had not triggered in several days. I took a look into the problem, and I am not 100% certain, but I believe that this was related to the levels of section headers that were being used. The bot tends to archive things at a "level 2" (==headername==) degree of granularity. There were a few sections on this page that started at level 2, and then had multiple level 3 and lower subheadings within them. As long as a single comment within those subheadings was within the last 10 days or so, it kept the entire thing from being archived.

To address this, I have manually archived several sections. Where I couldn't find a good place to "cut", I manually demoted some section headers, and added a {{sidebox}} which points to the related discussions in archive. If this caused confusion, I apologize... I was doing my best! If any thread was archived which must be back on this talkpage, feel free to pull it back into the discussion. However, I would prefer if people could instead use links and/or sideboxes to simply point to the archives. Also, in the future, please be cautious about making level-2 sections that are too wide in scope. When a single thread gets to be over 50K in size, then that's too large, and things need to be chopped down. Remember that some people's browsers start having trouble with anything over 32K, in total page size! One other suggestion, is that I noticed that some threads were quoting large amounts of article text here on the talkpage. A better way to handle this would be to make a subpage, and then link to the subpage. Some other places on Wikipedia might name this as "/Work" or "/Draft" or "/July 2008 draft subpage" or something like that.

I'll be unprotecting this page shortly after posting this message. Thank you for your patience, and let me know if you have any questions, --Elonka 21:29, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

This is being overly optimistic about how this talk page will operate. Discussions cover a lot of ground, and people are in a hurry; we can't expect every editor to follow a bunch of relatively-complicated procedures like sidebars and subpages. We can try to break up long level-2 sections, though; that's easy. As for people whose browsers can't handle more than 32K, well, sorry, but nowaays that's simply too small for reasonable web browsing; they'll just have to get a real browser. Eubulides (talk) 21:42, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
You are free to bring up that particular argument at WP:SIZE. --Elonka 21:59, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
WP:SIZE doesn't talk about a 32K limit for the whole talk page. It talks only about a 32K limit for individual subsections. And even there, it says that the limit is mostly obsolete. Until somebody actually complains about their browser messing up on this talk page, I wouldn't worry about it. Eubulides (talk) 22:18, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Having a talk page of 650k is ridiculous. And saying if someone's browser can't handle it that they should get a new one/new computer is just plan condescending — Rlevse • Talk • 23:47, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

  • I agree that the talk page is large, but that's because there's a lot of talk on this subject.
  • Expiring the talk in a week has problems of its own, which are real problems: you can't expect every editor to visit here every week.
  • We don't really have time to worry about theoretical concerns. If there is a real Wikipedia editor who has a real problem with their browser that would be fixed by the proposed changes, we can worry about the problem. If not, let's move on to something more important.
Eubulides (talk) 10:32, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Chiropracty vs. Chiropractic

After doing a quick scan through the archives, I didn't see an explanation of why the article is called Chiropractic. Isn't that an adjective? We don't call the article on Homeopathy homeopathic? Or Science scientific? They redirect to the noun version if you type in the adjective form. Shouldn't that be the case here too? Right now it's the other way around. ABlake (talk) 00:58, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Chiropractic is a noun [4]. Compare a google search for "Chiropracty" to a google search for "Chiropractic". 1000x the results for Chiropractic. DigitalC (talk) 02:05, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
Here you will find chiropractors discussing this very matter. DigitalC is correct. -- Fyslee / talk 05:22, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

[Manually Archived] - DigitalC (talk) 06:00, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

History is hot topic

Edits to finished History 2

This is related to the discussion at
Talk:Chiropractic/Archive 24#History 2

I've made some edits to the article that were reverted by QuackGuru though I realize that I wasn't signed in and it looked like an anon IP, so I reverted back. -- Dēmatt (chat) 01:34, 2 July 2008 (UTC)


As discussed earlier, we have two different sources that consider the reasons that DD and BJ developed the innate intelligence; one was that they believed it and the other that it was to protect it from political medicine. Right now we have this sentence that states that "Early chiropractors believed". That gives the impression that all early chiropractors believed that innate was God's presence in man, but obviously this wasn't true. We know that John Howard didn't and he started the school right across the street from Palmer while DD was still there that later became National Chiropractic and now National University of Health Sciences. John Howard was very influential in making sure chiropractic did not become a religion.. as was Willard Carver who went up against BJ at every turn. These were both presidents of mixer schools. Anyway, ScienceApologist reverted my change to "DD professed", which might not have been a bad thing, because that, too was not totally accurate, but certainly an improvement. I am open to suggestions on how we can change this to make it more accurate and still follow the sources. -- Dēmatt (chat) 01:47, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

  • The source in question (Martin 1993, PMID 11623404) says (p. 812) "At the core of chiropractic's early appeal was its ability to reflect certain traditional values and beliefs in a way the new 'scientific' medicine did not. In contrast to the increasingly secular scientific medicine, chiropractic emphasized that disease resulted from a violation of God's natural laws. Chiropractors believed that all disease was caused by interruptions in the flow of a vital nervous energy that they called 'innate intelligence.'... At its inception chiropractic explicitly addressed considerably broader issues than etiology, diagnosis, and therapeutics. For chiropractors innate intelligence was more than a mysterious life force, it represented God's presence in man." Martin cites D.D. Palmer's 1910 textbook and B.J. Palmer's The Science of Chiropractic (3rd ed., 1917).
  • Again, it's reasonable for a historical article to say "Early Christians believed that Christ would return soon", even though this is not true of all early Christians, and even though the belief was motivated by more practical political considerations. Similarly, it's reasonable for Martin (and for Chiropractic) to talk about the beliefs of the majority of chiropractors in the important formative years in general terms, even if there were obviously some counterexamples, and even if there were political motivations behind the beliefs. The current text already talks about political motivations for the beliefs (legal protection) so I don't see important notions being omitted here.
Eubulides (talk) 05:15, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm a little confused due to the archiving, but I believe that the draft that is currently being worked on is History 2? This sentence - "Although D.D. and B.J. were "straight" and disdained the use of instruments, some early chiropractors, whom B.J. scornfully called "mixers", advocated their use." is confusing and is not grammatically correct - it implies that mixers advocated the use of mixers. DigitalC (talk) 23:29, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
  • The next sentence is also a little confusing - "In 1910 B.J. changed course and endorsed the use of X-rays for diagnosis; this resulted in a significant exodus from Palmer of the more-conservative faculty and students.". Which Palmer was there an exodus from? PSC? DD Palmer? BJ Palmer? DigitalC (talk) 23:32, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
  • And one more - "By the mid-1990s there was a growing scholarly interest in chiropractic, which helped efforts to improve service quality and establish clinical guidelines that recommended spinal manipulation in some cases." Were the efforts really to establish guidelines recommeding SMT in some cases? Wouldn't the efforts be to establish clinical guidelines that recommend SMT? DigitalC (talk) 23:32, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Thanks for pointing those out. I made this change to try to fix those problems. Eubulides (talk) 08:09, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

History 4 - section break

This is related to the discussion at
Talk:Chiropractic/Archive 24#History 4?
Oh, to clear up confusion. History 4 was started because I did not feel comfortable making changes to Eubulides History 2 without him getting a chance to see them. As we worked our way through our discussions, he updated History 2, but I never updated History 4, I just moved on to the next paragraph. So History 2 should be considered the working copy while History 4 is where I will try out my changes. I woud use my sandbox, but it works well because Eubulides seems to take a look and we can discuss things before we get in too deep. I believe I started that second paragraph and had to run without even finishing the sente...  ;-) I'll probably just be making changes to the article version from here anyway. Of course if you want a reference just let me know, sometimes what I think is obvious does need a source. -- Dēmatt (chat) 03:15, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
Re some recent edits: this edit adds "invented a new vocabulary"; this is what the source says, so this is following the source (Primer) better as stated in the edit summary.
This edit changed "mainstream medicine" to "political medicine". The source cited is Keating et al.'s "Primer". The sources uses the phrase "mainstream medicine" once, not, in my opinion, when discussing the topic of battles or competition, and uses the phrase "political medicine" multiple times and often in the context of active rivalry/conflict. Therefore this change brings the article closer to the source.
This edit changed "However, its future seemed uncertain: as the number of practitioners grew, evidence-based medicine insisted on treatments with demonstrated value, managed care restricted payment, and competition grew from massage therapists and other health professions. The profession responded by marketing natural products and devices more aggressively, and by reaching deeper..." to "However, as the number of practitioners grew, managed care restricted payment, and competition grew from other health professions its future seemed uncertain. The profession responded by reaching deeper...". The source given is Cooper & McKee 2003. The doi link is broken and I'm not sure whether I can easily obtain this source, so I can't comment. A quote from this source somewhere on this talk page says nothing about marketing natural products and devices; I don't know if that's somewhere else in the source.
I've run out of time, so I'll have to comment on "Early chiropractors believed" another time.
Eubulides, I apologize for some omissions on my part, which you've pointed out, and which were due to lack of time. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:27, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

(outdent)

  • Invented a new vocabulary. It's true that if we include more words from the source, we are "following the source" better by some epsilon; but the source contains thousands of words, and we cannot include them all. The question is whether the information contained in the phrase "invented a new vocabulary" is worth the cost in space of adding it. I don't think it is. There is no grand theme, common to all or even most histories of chiropractic, that says that B.J. invented a new vocabulary; "invented a new vocabulary" is just one phrase out of Keating et al. 2005 and I don't see why we should highlight that particular turn of phrase. The important thing is that B.J. was using new words for the same things to avoid prosecution, and that point is made clearly in the text without using the phrase "invented a new vocabulary". I therefore suggest that we remove the phrase. This is not a big deal, as it is merely editing for brevity and is not fixing a POV problem; but these little phrases add up and it's better to be concise.
  • Political medicine. The phrase "political medicine" is different. The original use of the term "political medicine" was to mean what we would now call more "public health"; see, for example William Pulteney Alison. This use is still the most common one in mainstream literature; see, for example, Bergman 1995 (PMID 7478770). Using it instead to refer to organized medicine's attempt to squash chiropractic is a mildly pejorative Keatingism that has not been picked up in the mainstream literature. The phrase was part of the title of a paper by Keating & Mootz 1989 (PMID 2691602), and Keating clearly liked this use of the phrase, but hardly anyone else does, even within chiropractic (the common phrases are "mainstream medicine" or "organized medicine"), and we should not be introducing nonstandard terminology here. How about replacing "mainstream medicine" with "organized medicine" as a compromise? "Organized medicine" is also used by Keating et al. in the context of conflict, and has less of a pejorative connotation.
  • Natural products and devices. Cooper & McKee 2003 (PMID 12669653) write in their brief introductory summary (pp. 107–108) "At the same time, chiropractors are experiencing greater competition from acupuncturists and massage therapists, whose ranks also are growing. In response, the profession is expanding beyond its traditional forms of chiropractic treatment by reaching deeper into both alternative medicine and primary care, and practitioners are more aggressively marketing natural products and devices." They have an entire section (pp. 122–124) entitled "A broader role in alternative medicine", full of juicy quotes like "Surveys show that the ability of chiropractors to maintain their incomes increasingly depends on the sale of nutritional products and other ancillary items, such as orthotic supports, weight management products, and magnets."

Hope this helps. Eubulides (talk) 16:41, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, Eubulides. Given your argument about "inventing a new vocabulary", I admit that those words are not needed. Re "organized medicine": that sounds like a good compromise. Re natural products: thank you for taking the time to provide a quote from Cooper & McGee; apparently that part of the article follows its source well. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:20, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
OK, thanks, I made this change to replace "mainstream medicine" with "organized medicine". Eubulides (talk) 10:32, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Please don't edit war

I think the edits by 98.24.93.125 are probably an improvement but will look at them more closely when I have time. ScienceApologist, please specify the source that says that early chiropractors (rather than just D.D.) believed ... . Everyone, regardless of whether the edits are good or bad, please discuss it on the talk page instead of repeatedly reverting. Let's not get the article protected again! ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:37, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

(Later comment:) I apologize. I was confused by the edit history when I wrote the above, and thought there were more reverts than there were. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:33, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
I am very much in agreement with you here and would like to second your request for ScienceApologist (or some other editor) to produce such a source. -- Levine2112 discuss 01:47, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
There is a reliable source for early chiropractors. It's the cited source. For more details, please look above in the talk page and scan for the string "The source in question (Martin 1993, PMID 11623404) says (p. 812)". You can also search earlier in this talk page and catch the comparisons to early Christian beliefs (this was when talking about the terminology of what it means to say "Early chiropractors believed". Eubulides (talk) 05:15, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

People here seem to think that in order to write a Wikipedia article we are supposed to leave our brains at the door. We are not a computer program. There is no reason to particularly attribute a well-known belief. We have many "chiroskeptical sources", for example, which confirm the point. And, despite their continual disparagement here, they are unequivocally reliable since they were written by medical professionals. Using a primary source is fine, but trying to claim it is the ONLY source for something that everyone acknowledges is not a singular belief is really problematic. We are editors. We make editorial decisions. Read Quackwatch and Chirobase and realize that these are incredibly reliable sources and that they represent a real understanding of the state of chiropractic. ScienceApologist (talk) 02:03, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

It is your opinion that these are reliable sources. I believe ArbCom has declared them to be highly partisan and thus questionable sources - or rather sources to be used with caution. That said, please produce a source which supports the text you have reverted to. It would be appreciated. -- Levine2112 discuss 02:09, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
Arbcom was not making any claim in that decision as to a universal support or denial of any source. They were merely referencing ONE PARTICULAR INSTANCE. You can read all about it in the archives at WP:AE. For our purposes those "highly partisan" and "questionable" sources are better than a lot of the nonsense being pushed by self-promoting chiropractors on these talk pages. Why would QW be highly partisan? Is Barrett a member of an opposing political party from the chiropractors? No. Arbcom was talking about editor conduct in a very confined instance: So since I have provided the rationale, I call faker again. Two strikes, Levine. ScienceApologist (talk) 02:17, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
You seem to be ducking our request to produce a source which support your recent reversions. If you would like to discuss the merits of Quackwatch, perhaps it would be logical to first produce a source from Barrett's self-published site which actually supports your reverts. Thanks. -- Levine2112 discuss 02:25, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
I would think that if we want to know what chiropractors believed, a source written by chiropractors would be more reliable than a source written by medical doctors. In any case, at the moment in this thread no source has been mentioned supporting the claim. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 02:31, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
Again, the source is Martin 1993 (PMID 11623404). Eubulides (talk) 05:15, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Maybe you should stop disparaging reliable sources in general?

Here's the first couplalinks I found:

ScienceApologist (talk) 02:36, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

None of these sources appear to be remotely reliable save the last two. That said, can you located where in those sources your reverted text is supported? Thanks. -- Levine2112 discuss 02:40, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
All I have to do is show evidence that people other than DD believe in the idiocy. Done and done. Take it up at WP:RSN if you don't believe me. ScienceApologist (talk) 02:42, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
Yes, pretty much that's all you have to do. Specifically you should find a reliable source supporting that early chiropractors believed in this theory. Can you point to where in the reliable sources above (or some other reliable source) this is supported? -- Levine2112 discuss 02:52, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Again, the source is Martin 1993 (PMID 11623404), which is the source currently being cited for the claim in question. I find it amusing, and a bit sad, that so many editors are assuming that the claim about early chiropractic beliefs isn't sourced. That sort of thing used to be common in Chiropractic, but we've come a long way in the past few months in getting things better sourced, and there should not be any such howlers now.
  • By the way, I don't know if anyone cares, but Martin is really good: he's a much better writer and thinker than Keating. Martin wrote the chiropractic chapter in The Cambridge World History of Human Disease (ISBN 0521332869).
Eubulides (talk) 05:15, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
There seems to be a bit of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT going on Eubulides :-) Shot info (talk) 06:50, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) I figured I wouldn't be able to edit once History 2 was placed into mainspace without consensus. I am dissappointed that rational well thought out changes are summarily deleted without so much as conversation as to their validity and purpose. No matter what someone wants to call me, chiropractor, quack, true believer, or and editor with a COI, I have done the best I could to represent the sources and check my POV at the door, so much so that I doubt any of you know what I believe. I have represented every POV that exists, even ScienceApologist's so-called rational skepticism. I do not appreciate the lack of AGF, but I will continue to AGF. There were three small edits that were deleted by SA and QG essentially. Two were not supported by the source so were allowed to be deleted and I represented them that way on the edit summary, though I had not signed in, so perhaps QG did not realize that it was me. The other edit was about the "Early chiropractor's believed". I explained myself above by noting that first Martin states it as "Chiropractors believed", so I realize that Eubulidies had graciously added Early to soften the POV somewhat, however, it still does not go far enough to be accurate as it assumes that ALL Early chirorpactors believed... the fact is of course that this is not even remotely possible and Keating does a good job of tellin us what chiropractors believed (he is a psychologist by trade that worked in the chiropractic profession, Martin even uses him as a source) in his paper on the The Meanings of Innate. ScienceApologist was not terribly wrong in reverting the "DD Palmer believed" that I put in as well, but we need to find a way to express that "some" chiropractors believed.. BTW, I don't doubt that Medicine believed that ALL chiropractors believed that God was the source of all health. Maybe we can state it that way. Realistically, though, chiropractors had some really good thinkers back then, too, that were scientific in the way of practicing and evaluating responses, etc.. John Howard for one. Most were MDs before they were chiropractors in those early years. Just for the record, if chiropractors believed this heavenly stuff, and I were a chiropractor, don't you think I would be proud of it and be trying to fill wikipedia with it. Anyway, since I am not allowed to edit in mainspace. Could someone fix that for me? -- Dēmatt (chat) 12:44, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Dematt, they manifestly ARE supported by the source. Using WP:FRINGE#Particular attribution to try to claim that only DD believed a certain way is ridiculous. We have wonderful sources which show that this is not the case. On the other hand, you seem to think that there existed some group of "early" chiropractors who didn't believe in vitalism mumbo-jumbo. You've got a source for this? You seem to think that Keating is saying that there were early chiropractors who didn't believe in DD's baloney. I don't see Keating saying that at all. I do see him trying to operate apologetics on his spiritual mentor and trying to rescue him from the derision we now heap upon magical claims such as DD were making, but you need a source that submits that there were contemporaries of Palmer that did not take him at his word. Not seen that one yet. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:53, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
Absolutely there were chirorpactors that didn't believe in DD's chiropractic into a religion. John Howard opened National College directly across the street and he was against turning chirorpactic into anything spiritual - though he was quoted as saying how DD needed to protect it with a "veil of secrecy" until science could prove some of it's tenets. However, that is not to say that vitalism was not part of many personal belief systems - including MDs of the time - Louis Pasteur was an avid vitalist. But that does not mean that the 'vital force' was "God's manifestation in man" - only that it was not a testable entity. Many still believe this.. and a lot of those are likely chiropractors, but I don't think you can claim to know either; if you do, let me see it. I don't think Keating had anything to apologize for, but you may be reading something into his writings that I am not seeing. Again, though, we not supposed to do that. -- Dēmatt (chat) 20:22, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
Martin 1993's comment about chiropractors' beliefs is in the context of his section on early chiropractic, e.g., "At the core of chiropractic's early appeal", so there is clear justification in the source for Chiropractic's saying "Early chiropractors believed". But changing this to "Some early chiropractors believed" would go well beyond what the source says. Again, by analogy, it is reasonable to say "Early Christians believed that Christ would soon return" even though obviously some early Christians did not believe that; the point is to document a belief that was widely held among early Christians. If we limited ourselves to describing only beliefs held by each and every early Christian, we would be describing almost the empty set of beliefs, and that would not be useful or encyclopedic. Chiropractic is similar in that respect. Eubulides (talk) 16:46, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
I commented in the History section. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:27, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
Yes, thanks, I followed up there. Eubulides (talk) 16:41, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
Martin's piece was a nice piece on how technology of the time helped to push alternative medicine in general and chiropractic specifically into the realm of mainstream medicine. His point was the dichotomy that chiropractic had to breach as it tried to advance through science while at the same time appeal to the popular patinet base that had strong religious beliefs and disdain for anything big and powerful. It is not an end all piece on chiropractic and wasn't meant to be. He even said he was just trying to make his case for technology in the first paragraph. Our history needs to reflect the full spectrum of the times which includes the atmosphere of the times that produced this vitalistic approach out of the American midwest. -- Dēmatt (chat) 20:22, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Forest of red links

This change, which I reverted, created more red links than I've ever seen in a Wikipedia article. Surely there's a better way to accomplish whatever that change is trying to accomplish. But before discussing improvements, first we need to know what the change was trying to accomplish. Eubulides (talk) 20:47, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

For one, it accomplished me starting a new article: Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics. It's just a stub, so I'd love some more input there. Anyhow, I think Elonka's edit was a good one, in that it encourages more interlinking amongst articles and may also encourage a lot of new article creation. I would suggest keeping her edit. -- Levine2112 discuss 20:54, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
I have put the links back. Don't worry, they won't be redlinks for long. Many of them are just odd abbreviations, that just need to be set up as redirects to existing articles. In fact, in the infobox for journals, there's even an "abbreviation" line for this kind of stuff. For example, I just linked the (previously red) Am J Public Health to American Journal of Public Health,[13] and added the abbreviation to the infobox there.[14] In short, for all of those redlinks, these are generally major things such as publishing houses or academic journals, for which there should be articles or stubs on Wikipedia. If there truly isn't one, then it's usually a simple matter to make a quick stub, which both gets rid of the redlink on this article, and also adds an extremely useful stub to Wikipedia, which is probably already being linked to from other pages as well. Plus it makes your contrib list look really good, to show that you are adding needed stubs to the project.  :) --Elonka 21:38, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
  • OK, now that I see what's being proposed and why, I disagree with it strongly on stylistic grounds. Even if all the red links would turn into blue links, the result would violate the guidelines in MOS:LINK #Overlinking and underlinking, which talks about excessive links. For example, there are many links to J Manipulative Physiol Ther, whereas there should be at most one.
  • This idea of wikilinking every journal and source mentioned in an article is not common on Wikipedia. I've not seen it used elsewhere. I don't think it's a good idea in any article; but I especially don't think it's a good idea to "try it out" on a controversial article like this one. Please revert the change.
Eubulides (talk) 21:50, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
Ah, good point about J Manipulative Physiol Ther, I wasn't aware that I was multi-linking that one. Definitely remove all but the first link on that, or I'll go ahead and get it. Ditto with any others that I multi-linked. --Elonka 21:57, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
I still disagree that this is the way to go, but at minimum please review every change you made and verify that there is at most one link to a particular journal or other source, and that when you follow that link you get something useful. There should be no red links and no bogus links and no duplicate links. It's not reasonable to make a change like this and expect others to clean up the mess afterwards. Eubulides (talk) 22:27, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Redlinks to articles that are likely to soon be created are fine. If someone is planning to create said article soon, the redlink should be left alone. — Rlevse • Talk • 23:46, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

All of the links that I added, were to sources, to link either the journal name, or the publishing house for a book. Redlinks are allowable if they are to articles which are likely to be created. If, however, we have a redlink to something that does not look like it's worth an article, then rather than simply removing the link, we should probably look at removing that entire source, since it probably does not meet WP:RS standards. --Elonka 01:59, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
  • I disagree that we should remove a source simply because the publishing house does not look like it's worth an article. Should we remove a citation to D.D. Palmer's 1910 book on chiropractic simply because its publisher was minor and went bankrupt long ago?
  • I spent a loooong time fixing up the obvious gotchas in the changes that were introduced. Some of these were duplicate wikilinks. Some were wikilinks to a bogus redirect (for example, Soc Sci Med is bogus: it merely points to a publishing house and says nothing about the journal in question).
  • It is aggravating that to spend so much time on this problem. I remain skeptical that the benefits of this exercise are worth the pain.
  • There are still 32 red links in the article. I'll wait for a day or so for someone to fill them in appropriately. However, we should not have longstanding red links on the off chance that someone will create an article someday. For your convenience, here is a list of the red links:
Eubulides (talk) 10:32, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
Eubulides, thank you for your work in removing duplicate links, and I apologize for any clumsiness on my part in duplicating a few here or there. Thank you also for making a comprehensive list here at the talkpage, it is very helpful. As for the comment about "a day or so", remember there is no deadline. We should not remove redlinks simply because they are, well, red. Indeed, having them in the article can encourage editors to create needed articles, and is a reminder the Wikipedia isn't "done" yet. See WP:REDLINK: "In general, red links should not be removed if they link to something that could plausibly sustain an article." So, if anyone doesn't like having a redlink, they are welcome to create a stub or a redirect, but please do not simply remove the links, thanks. --Elonka 17:10, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Absolutely there is no deadline. Those other articles can be created whenever someone has the time to create them. But there is no reason to maintain this forest of red links here in the meantime. The red-linked items are not that notable for this subject. I'm not even convinced the blue wikilinks are useful.
  • The idea of having Wikipedia containing an article on every journal and publisher on the planet is a noble one, but that's a different goal, and Chiropractic should not be held hostage to it. If and when someone takes the time to write up good articles on these journals (most of the articles now being referred to are stubs, which is not that helpful), that would be a different matter. In the meantime the article-on-journals project is detracting from the main goal for this article, which is chiropractic. Writing about chiropractic is not easy, given the subject's controversy, and adding this extra project makes it harder.
  • I continue to reject the idea that the red links are a "flag" to the reader that the source may not be that reliable. That is a completely inappropriate way to write an article. The presence or absence of a Wikipedia article on a journal has zero bearing on whether the journal is a reliable source, and we should not encourage a new style that suggests otherwise.
  • I again suggest trying out the idea of wikilinking to all sources in a less-controversial article first. I suggest trying it out on Oxidative phosphorylation, the most recent featured article on a biomedical subject.
Eubulides (talk) 19:01, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
Three of the red links have been turned into blue ones, which is progress. However, adding these articles appears to be a low-priority task, so in the meantime I removed the 29 remaining red links. These wikilinks can be readded as blue links as the corresponding Wikipedia articles become available. Eubulides (talk) 16:26, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
  • I should mention that I still disagree with this editing style, which (as far as I know) is not used anywhere else in Wikipedia, and which should not be tried out first in such a controversial article.
  • I have not simply reverted the change; I've kept the links that are obviously useful. Levine2112 commented that it was useful for Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, and that link has been retained. Other links that point to Wikipedia articles have been retained as well. If any more articles get created, those links can be restored.
  • My biggest objection to this proposal is that it is based on the idea that the red links are a "flag" to the reader that the source may not be that reliable; that is a completely inappropriate use of red links and raises WP:NPOV issues. We already have too much trouble with NPOV in Chiropractic; let's not add some more trouble in this relatively unimportant area. If there is concern that a source is unreliable, it should be addressed with Template:Verify credibility or something like that; it should not be addressed in this backhanded way.
Eubulides (talk) 17:38, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
I have restored the links, per talkpage consensus. As for the questions about sources, I do have concerns about the reliability of several of the sources on this page, and I have brought up two in the below section. I will bring up more as well, as I go through them. The {{vc}} tag is also a reasonable option, which I have already used, and will probably use again. --Elonka 18:12, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
I disagree with the forest of red links. I have never seen so many red links in a reference section. This is very odd. QuackGuru 18:31, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
I am going to revert per WP:REDLINK: "In general, red links should not be removed if they link to something that could plausibly sustain an article". -- Levine2112 discuss 20:15, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
I tagged Best practice & research. Clinical rheumatology for several issues, but I guess that notability is not one of them. Bearian (talk) 20:56, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

The links are all blue now, as I have added articles for each one (with one exception noted above; a non-notable topic for which no sources are likely to be found). I still disagree with this sort of style: the make-work provides little utility for the readers and editors' time would be far better spent elsewhere. Also, for the record, two editors were opposed and two in favor of this change, and hardly any responses were given to the arguments against the change, which is disappointing. I still don't understand why this dubious experiment was tried out on this article. Eubulides (talk) 20:48, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Eubulides, I am finding your tone somewhat uncivil, could you please try to do better? The whole "make work" concept is bizarre. This is Wikipedia, a volunteer project with thousands of new articles coming in every day. Just having some redlinks in the references section of one article, did not "require" anyone to jump to work. We do things because we want to, no one's required to take on a "make work" task because the boss says so.  ;) Also, I am perplexed by the term "dubious experiment" as though this was the first article on Wikipedia where the sources were ever linked. This is definitely not the case.  :) However, thank you for creating stubs. I am also working on expanding some of them, as I am sure you have seen. I would also appreciate more eyes on Social Science & Medicine (Soc sci med), since it has a fairly complex publishing history. There are also differing descriptions at various websites. Pubmed says it ran 1967-1977, then was split into sub publications, which were re-merged in 1982. However, the Elsevier website says simply that publication started in 1978. So I'm not sure how to reflect this in the Wikipedia article, and would appreciate other opinions. Thanks, Elonka 21:54, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
  • It is not uncivil to point out that editorial work is unnecessary. And it is make-work from the point of view of Chiropractic to make this article the guinea pig for an unrelated project that progresses slowly, making Chiropractic look bad. (It is obviously not make-work if one's goal is that unrelated project; but this article is about chiropractic, not about particular journals or publishers.)
  • It is uncivil to revert with little or no comment here, to claim "consensus" when there were two editors vs. two, and to ignore these and other important points raised here. The important NPOV issues raised here were not addressed. These NPOV issues are moot now only because of the make-work I did.
  • There has been no mention here of any other Wikipedia article where this sort of citation style is routinely used.
  • I copied the comment about Soc Sci Med to Talk:Social Science & Medicine, a more appropriate location for it.
Eubulides (talk) 22:28, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of former red link

I have been adding articles for the red links. It's a lot of makework but I see no better way around the problem. One of them, Jones and Bartlett Publishers, has been tagged for speedy deletion. If it is deleted, we should remove the wikilink, for obvious reasons; there is no point redlinking to an article on a non-notable topic. Eubulides (talk) 23:49, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Stub has been expanded. --Elonka 18:50, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
Eubulides, I see now that you did the absolute minimum (actually less than minimum), creating one-line stubs for many of the links. The stubs have little more than a title and an ISSN number. I see this as a violation of Don't disrupt Wikipedia to make a point. As a result of your actions, many of the stubs have now been nominated for AfD deletion, which is further wasting community time, requiring a discussion on each one. In the future, when creating a stub, please include at least a few sentences and a couple sources. Otherwise, just leave the link as red, thanks. --Elonka 21:52, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
Creating those stubs was not the absolute minimum, since the stubs exceeded what was already there (namely, dozens of red links in Chiropractic). The disruption of Wikipedia to make a point, and the wasting of community time, began when those dozens of red links were inserted into Chiropractic, for reasons that still have not been well explained or justified; as far as I can tell, they have something to do with questioning the sources used in Chiropractic, which is an inappropriate use of red links. In the future, please consider gaining real consensus (not two-versus-two "consensus") over changes like that, particularly when making such changes to an already-controversial article like Chiropractic. This will help us all save time in the future. Eubulides (talk) 22:10, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
Eubulides, I am sorry, but I feel that there is a violation of WP:OWN here. I have seen you oppose every single change since I arrived at this article. When even attempts to add a link are reverted, and the archiving of a 650K talkpage is met with opposition, it is clear that the atmosphere has become very toxic. In the future, I strongly recommend that you try harder to assume good faith, rather than arguing about every single action. If not, you may be asked to completely avoid this article and its talkpage. --Elonka 22:40, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
Elonka, I think you should probably read a bit more of the history of this page rather than just basing your opinion on what has happened since you got here. Could you do that for me? Eubulides is one of the best editors at this page we've got and he's fighting some rather nasty ownership problems on the part of others that have been at place at this article for some time. ScienceApologist (talk) 22:44, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
  • It might be asking Elonka a bit much to read the megabytes of talk-page commentary, and the hundreds of edits to the article, generated in the past few months.
  • That being said, Elonka's summary of recent events is misleading. Elonka writes "I have you seen oppose every single change since I arrived at the article." But only one change, the change proposed by Elonka, has been made to the article since Elonka arrived. Two editors (including Elonka) initially supported that change and two (including me) initially opposed. I eventually accepted the change despite real problems with it, which were mentioned here but not addressed by the proposers of the change. Similarly, I did not like the botched job of archiving the talk page, and I still disagree with archiving comments after only 7 days of inactivity, but Elonka's change stuck there as well. And now I'm being accused of WP:OWNERSHIP? Even if we judge only by recent events, the ownership of the article clearly does not lie with me.
  • Elonka's most recent three posts to this talk page all contain accusations against my actions:
  1. The abovementioned accusation of WP:OWNERSHIP[15].
  2. An accusation of disruption to prove a point[16].
  3. A vague accusation that I was uncivil[17].
  • This most-recent accusation needs to be read in context of the longer string of accusations. Eubulides (talk) 15:55, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
In general there is divided opinion about whether every mention of a peer=reviewed journal should be linked--Personally, I think it unnecessary--Basic information about finding journals is rather easy to find in OCLC WorldCat and elsewhere, not to mention the publishers web pages. The links do not not really help the article, and I think if anything confuse the reader. But some of the other science people I respect feel quite the opposite--that they help the reader evaluate the reference quality--but of course this only works if the journal articles are informative. See my comment below--I am trying to fill in the stub articles to prevent deletion, and it would have been much better to have done this a few at a time. Eubulides, you are correct that things like this done in large batches always attract unfavorable attention and unnecessary drama. DGG (talk) 02:32, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Emphasis on the spine

I just added this most fundamental fact about the profession, yet something is missing.

Many could get the impression that the chiropractic emphasis on the spine is solely because of concern for the health of the spine alone, when that is not the case at all. The spine is considered the key to the health of the entire body, IOW, by treating the spine alone (if a straight), a chiropractor believes (s)he can treat dis-ease [tm] in other parts of the body, as well as prevent dis-ease in other parts of the body. The spine is not the aim, but the means to an end. How do we get this included? There are plenty of RS discussing this, mostly from the straight perspective, although this thinking is also basic to mixers, and is a fundamental characteristic of the whole profession, with very few exceptions. The only difference is that mixers add other treatments than spinal adjustments to their mix of methods. They will be inclined to consider treatment of the affected area as also of worth, not considering treatment of the spine alone as sufficient. -- Fyslee / talk 05:55, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

We should use a ref from the body of the article and not add a new ref to the lead. QuackGuru 06:39, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
Quite true. -- Fyslee / talk 14:53, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Spine emphasis is poorly sourced and is not in body

  • This change is poorly sourced. The cited source[18] does not say that chiropractic has a special emphasis on the spine. It says only that the physical examination during the initial visit has a special emphasis on the spine.
  • Special emphasis is a reasonable point to make, but it must have a better source than this.
  • For now, I have added a "Failed verification" tag to this new citation. Can you please find a better source? Preferably one published in a peer reviewed journal, or something like that?
  • As per WP:LEAD the lead should summarize the body, but this new text in the lead does not summarize anything in the body. This should be fixed by adding a discussion of the special emphasis in the body. Can you please write that as well?
  • I agree with QuackGuru that a good rule of thumb is that the lead should never cite any source that is not also cited in the body. This is a corollary of WP:LEAD. Let's use that rule here. This can be done by citing the better source in the new text in the body.
Eubulides (talk) 09:16, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
All very true. Let's all work on this, because anyone who knows anything about chiropractic knows this to be a fact. We just need some better refs and inclusion in the body of the article. -- Fyslee / talk 14:53, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
I made this change to work around the immediate problem. Eubulides (talk) 18:37, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
Just to clarify: this change was just a quick fix to work around the immediate problem of failed verification. I have some qualms about citing Nelson et al. 2005 (PMID 16000175) so prominently, as it is a prescriptive paper (it proposes a model of the profession) rather than a descriptive paper. It's clearly an improvement over the previous citation, but it would be nice if we could do better. Eubulides (talk) 19:08, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
Your concerns are very legitimate. That source could still be used in some manner, notable and reliable source that it is, but it should be introduced and attributed properly. Let's keep it as a source for possible use. I hope you understand and agree with my wish to get this matter included as a valuable bit of information in the article. -- Fyslee / talk 21:39, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
That sentence that we have sourced to Nelson now is so common that we shouldn't even have to source it. I am sure that almost all chiropractic literature says it, including the ACC;
"Chiropractic is a health care discipline that emphasizes the inherent recuperative power of the body to heal itself without the use of drugs or surgery.
"The practice of chiropractic focuses on the relationship between structure (primarily the spine) and function (as coordinated by the nervous system) and how that relationship affects the preservation and restoration of health. In addition, Doctors of Chiropractic recognize the value and responsibility of working in cooperation with other health care practitioners when in the best interest of the patient."
More important about the Nelson source is that it represents current chiropractic thought as suggested by CorticoSpinal and DigitalC's reform minded education. It suggests that chiropractors restrict their practices to the musculoskeletal issues related to the spine. I'm not sure that it supports the issue that Fyslee is talking about, where chiropractors might adjust spines in an effort to affect general health issues.
-- Dēmatt (chat) 22:29, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
The Nelson source is a proposal for future practice. It is currently a model employed by some chiropractors, and officially by all reform DCs. Other sources, most notably straight - but many mixers as well - support the traditional use of spinal adjustments to affect and effect general and specific health issues, including those totally unrelated to the spine or nervous system. We should be able to find a number of such sources. The official guidelines of the International Chiropractic Association and the World Chiropractic Alliance probably include such wordings. -- Fyslee / talk 16:10, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
I think that at present, Chiropractic does have an emphasis on the spine. I think this is due partly to public perception, partyly to professional branding, and partly to Chiropractic's philosophical origins. On the other hand, saying that there is an emphasis on the spine in an effort to treat non-spinal conditions would be a POV statement, rather than a NPOV statement. DigitalC (talk) 05:02, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
The whole section deals with various POV regarding the spinal emphasis, and there is a segment of chiropractic that still advocates adjustments of the spine to treat non-spinal conditions. They're called "straights". There are myriad sources that bear this out. It's not my POV, and of course should never be included without appropriate sourcing. This isn't a final version. -- Fyslee / talk 06:02, 14 July 2008 (UTC)


  • IE - I think that these quotes from Fyslee are POV. They may be verifiable, but are not the truth, and do NOT represent the profession as a whole.
  • "treating the spine..." "a chiropractor believes (s)he can treat dis-ease [tm] in other parts of the body, as well as prevent dis-ease in other parts of the body"
  • "this thinking is also basic to mixers, and is a fundamental characteristic of the whole profession, with very few exceptions."citation needed
I basically agree with you. Not all those statements (well, not "those" statements, as they are my own rough ideas, not even close to any final wording, which is being attempted elsewhere here at Wikipedia) should be attributed to the whole profession. I hope I haven't given that impression. The different POV regarding spinal emphasis should be attributed properly to the correct segments of the profession. -- Fyslee / talk 06:09, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
It keeps coming down to attribution. Like I said before, I think the problem with the first version of Chiropractic is that we understated the reform POV and overstated the straight POV. That triggered CS (not understanding how WP worked) to write something that was totally reform minded, which in turn caused concern with Eubulides' medical understanding so he jumped in. The problem with trying to write one article about something that covers the entire gamot of healthcare is that, unless you attribute the specifics, it comes across as being one sided and by definitiion is POV. We either have to restrict this article to the things that all POVs have in common (such as the Medicine article and link to articles that are specific to the groups (ie Straight chiropractic, etc..), or attribute statements appropriately. Just thinking out loud. -- Dēmatt (chat) 13:09, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

POV tag on evidence basis

Chiropractic #Evidence basis has a {{POV-section}} tag, but I don't recall discussion about that here. There's been a lot of discussion about that section's {{Synthesis}} tag (see Talk:Chiropractic/Archive 24 #Syn and implicit conclusions above for the latest installment) but that's a different subject. With all the recent archiving I suppose I could have missed the discussion. I'm creating this section to be a repository for discussion of this topic, with the goal of resolving that issue. Eubulides (talk) 20:29, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

There's been no comment on this topic for several days. Any further thoughts? If not, I'm inclined to remove the {{POV-section}} tag. Obviously this would not affect the {{Synthesis}} tag. Eubulides (talk) 21:15, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
The section needs lots of work, some SYN and some POV. If we fix the SYN, it's likely that the POV will disappear with it, but let's leave it for now. We'll get it all worked out soon enough. -- Dēmatt (chat) 03:00, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't see any Syn or POV. Vague comments of some POV is unhelpful. Please provide your evidence of POV. QuackGuru 06:48, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree with QuackGuru about vagueness being unhelpful here. A POV tag should be accompanied by a specific allegation of POV. Eubulides (talk) 09:16, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't remember a specific allegation about the History section that was rapidly replaced due to POV problems. Regardless, as a result of the SYN violations that equate chiropractic care with spinal manipulation, it gives that impression that the limitations of spinal manipulation are the same for chiropractic care. This becomes a problem of Neutrality and verifiability where we have sources that are combined in a dubious manner, marginalizing positive sources and emphasizing negative sources. Combine this with the lack of discussion for all the other treatment techniques results in WP:Weight issues that are also part of WP:NPOV. The section further breaks down into subsections that repeat these same problems, because the only information we have is about spinal manipulation not chiropractic care. All of this can be solved by moving discussions related to particular therapies to their respective articles and reserving any discussion of scientific research for general discussions of chiropractic care. Dematt 14:53, July 12, 2008
Thanks, but that's still too vague for us to cure any defects in the section. Which positive sources are being unduly marginalized, and which negative sources are being unduly emphasized? Which other treatment techniques are not being discussed? It is certainly not the case that "the only information we have is about spinal manipulation"; other treatment techniques are discussed. And I remain mystified as to how NPOV problems here, assuming there are any, can be cured by moving the POV discussion to some other article. If it's POV here, it'll be POV there too. Eubulides (talk) 09:00, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
No specific evidence of POV has been presented. QuackGuru 18:35, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
Again, no specific evidence of POV has been presented. QuackGuru 01:57, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Please see Talk:Chiropractic#Antiscientific_reasoning - DigitalC (talk) 04:06, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
The Talk:Chiropractic #Antiscientific reasoning thread contains complaints about the use of the word "antiscientific", but that word is supported by multiple reliable sources and is not opposed by any reliable source. I'll follow up further in that thread. Eubulides (talk) 06:16, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Commented-out reference

ImperfectlyInformed asked, "why was this reference commented out?" When two or more consecutive sentences are supported by the same reference, as in this case, the footnote only needs to go after the last one. The reference was left there, commented-out, to assist with editing, for example if the sentence gets moved; or to discourage people from adding fact tags, as you were going to do: it worked, didn't it? ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 20:56, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Would have worked much better with a brief explaining note... but soon after I looked at it, I saw that a similar statement was cited near the lead. So it doesn't matter so much for close readers, a group of which I am not always a part. :p II | (t - c) 01:14, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
Well, after your edit, I went to add such explaining notes in all the places where I'd done that in the article, but decided not to, because they would take up too much space. If someone else wants to add such notes that's fine with me, though. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:44, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Reliable sources

While working my way through the sources on this article, I see several are articles published in Dyn Chiropr (Dynamic Chiropractic). This does not appear to be a peer-reviewed journal, but instead is more of a tabloid-format periodical, which is heavy on the ads.[19] Has there been a discussion about whether or not this meets WP:RS standards? Please note that I have no strong opinion at this point as to whether it is a reliable source, I'm just acting here as a source-checker, and asking to see if this has been discussed or not? --Elonka 12:04, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Your characterization of Dynamic Chiropractic is correct: it's not peer-reviewed and contains a high percentage of biased and unreliable junk. Not every article in Dyn Chiropr is unreliable, though. Do you have concerns about a particular citation? Eubulides (talk) 16:53, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
What criteria are you using to determine which articles in Dynamic Chiropractic are or are not reliable? --Elonka 18:13, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
DC is the most widely read of all chiropractic publications. It is very notable, probably the most notable and representative of all chiropractic publications. It is an accurate window into the soul of the profession at any given time. I receive it, and I know chiropractors who line their bird cages with it.