User:Big universe/talk

talk page discussions to check

Green libertarianism

• 9/26/17: adding icon/logo

Talk:Influenza

10/15/17 (10/16, early AM):

• Corrected unsupported statement "Frequent hand washing reduces the risk of infection because the virus is inactivated by soap" to "Frequent hand washing reduces the risk of viral transmission", which is the finding based on the referenced study.
• Left comment on talk page, because although there was a request on main page to discuss first on talk page before editing, the error had to be corrected immediately since it was a pretty significant and obvious one (and 1000's of ppl are looking at the flu page every day).
• Person who left erroneous statement also left a PubMed reference; I used excerpts from the reference's abstract to show that the original statement was: 1) not only not in agreement with the study's findings, but way off base (and totally ridiculous); and 2) to support the edit made to correct it.
• Update: corrected "antivirals" to "virucides" (2 very diff. things).

• Update (10/22): User (admin) named Graham Beards left a comment on 10/20 that 'It has long been known that enveloped viruses are inactivated by soap' but provided no references to back it up. Checked out his user page and history, and doesn't seem like a troll. Didn't look up much else about him, though, as it would be a waste of time if he does actually cough up some refs (from CREDIBLE peer-reviewed journals with decent impact factors; and yes, I will check it). But such a statement without a credible reference is essentially worthless.
  • Technically, my edit was about the fact that the original sentence wasn't supported by the cited reference, so it was replaced with a statement that did reflect the info in the ref.
  • 2 days later, G. Beards has neither provided a ref, nor reverted my edit.
  • On 10/16, Doc James (an MD) changed my wording from "viral transmission" to "viral spread" with the comment "simplified" -- no biggie -- but didn't revert the edit. "Doc" is ALSO an admin, and is part of WikiProject Medicine and WikiProject Sanitation. So...like me, I guess the good doctor is ALSO unaware that "it has long been known that soap inactivates (enveloped) viruses"?
  • A week later (from 10/16), nobody has reverted my edit--including G. Beards. And at the beginning of flu season, no less.
  • Will wait and see what (if anything) happens.

• Notes on G. Beards' comment:
  • While detergents may inactivate (enveloped, including flu) viruses, detergents are considered to be different from consumer hand soap (see: lead section of Detergent, 2nd paragraph/1st sentence), and usually have special characteristics depending on the chemical class/type of detergent.
  • Orthomyxoviridae is the family of RNA viruses to which the flu viruses (type A, B, C) belong.
    • Orthomyxoviridae, section "Replication cycle", first paragraph, last sentence: "[Flu viruses] can be inactivated easily by disinfectants and detergents"; but again, "detergents" are distinct from "soap" (see previous point). Three references (#39, #40, #41) are cited to support this statement.
      • 2 of the 3 references cited are, in fact, BS.
        • Ref #39 in this section refers to the use of disinfectants (e.g. phenolics, quats, bleach) but not detergents.
        • Refs #40 and #41 have nothing to do with disinfectants or detergents inactivating virus, and thus are BS references.
        • Thus there are no references cited in this section that even establish the effective use of detergents to inactivate viruses of the family Orthomyxoviridae (including flu viruses).
      • Note that the original ref states that it is inconclusive whether handwash with added virucides/antimicrobials are effective at preventing viral spread; if handwash (NOT detergents but consumer-grade soap, as G. Beards appears to assert) by itself is effective at inactivating flu virus, why bother adding additional chemicals to it? And why even bother to consider the effect of such additives in this study, if handwash/soap by itself is sufficient, and if that "fact" has been known for a "long time"?
  • Relatively stringent conditions required to inactivate flu virus:
    • Orthomyxoviridae, section "Viability and disinfection", last 2 sentences:
      • "Influenza viruses are susceptible to bleach, 70% ethanol, aldehydes, oxidizing agents, and quaternary ammonium compounds. They are inactivated by heat of 133 °F (56 °C) for minimum of 60 minutes, as well as by low pH <2."[50]
      • What! They didn't even mention hand soap?! (LOL)
      • Note that there is also no mention of detergents in this section, only disinfectants.
    • Influenza, section "Transmission", 3rd paragraph, last sentence:
      • "[Avian influenza viruses] are inactivated by heating to 56 °C (133 °F) for a minimum of 60 minutes, as well as by acids (at pH <2)."[81]
  • Possible leads:
    • Have found one ref RE the use of cationic surfactants. Will check out and update. Likely quats at the polar end. Quats are a category of disinfectant known to be effective against flu virus, but are rather toxic and may cause birth defects/fertility problems and are thus inappropriate for antisepsis (application to skin). If quats are the effective agent, then the viral inactivation is still not due to the "soap" per se (as in "hand soap")--even though the quats in this case are attached to the (amphiphilic) soap molecule, the efficacy is due to the quats/additive and is not otherwise a natural/intrinsic quality of normal handsoap.
    • Have found one ref RE the use of Lifebuoy bar soap; will check out and update. However, Lifebuoy bar soap contained phenol (phased out in 1976, see 2nd para, 2nd sentence), which is another one of the disinfectants known to be effective against flu virus. The study (which I need to locate) may have used soap that still contained phenol. If so, then again, the efficacy would be due to the additive (phenol) and not the handsoap itself.

Talk: You Are So Beautiful

9/9/18 Spent a lot of time writing up a blurb for the talk page for "You Are So Beautiful" - requesting community consensus for genres.

Had written up something here, went to go get something, and came back to find that everything I wrote is gone. Having to rewrite it.

• >>Noticed that someone, user "ilovetopaint", deleted two genres ('soft rock' and 'blue eyed soul') from the page, saying that they were unreferenced. But they left one other genre, "pop", even though it, too, was unreferenced. Also, they did not add a reference for this genre.
• >>I had found some refs for the genres, and reverted the deleted info, intending to add the refs to the restored genres.
• >>User "ilovetopaint" rather quickly reverted my revert, saying "They're both debatable: I wouldn't call this "soft rock" and "blue-eyed soul" means nothing more than "soul by white people".
• >>I actually agree that it's probably not 'soft rock', and the ref I found for it ended up being for a compilation album rather than the individual song (was looking at the wrong page). D'oh! But I think I have a pretty good ref for the "blue-eyed soul". Also, there are several references to the singer being basically a 'white soul' singer, which is what BES is (though those refs can't be used for this article, per se). But it doesn't really matter what I (or they) think - the only thing that matters is what the references say.
• >>After the reversion, "ilovetopaint" actually made another genre edit - they added the genre "Soul" - but, hilariously, they didn't add a reference.
• >>They actually seem very nice, so I don't want to offend them.
• >>But I do find it odd how utterly important some people seem to think genres are. [As in "the world will end if THIS genre isn't added", or "the world will end if this genre IS added", sort of thing. Seriously.] Came across something like this on an Ed Sheeran article awhile back, but I sorted it out AFAIK. Again, it's all about the references.
• >>Had already spent quite some time preparing the talk page discussion, but then had to re-write part of it because of the misunderstanding I mentioned earlier. Then somehow I ended up on another page, and lost the entire edit buffer when I clicked back, so had to rewrite it again. My whole day has been like this. Then cleaned it up and basically trimmed it down to half the size, which was probably a good thing. But spent WAY too much time on it, writing, rewording, checking and re-checking everyhing, trying to make sure it's very easy to read, no misunderstandings, formatting errors, etc.
• >>In any case, am too tired to try to finish, will work on it tomorrow, need to sleep. Just wanted to write some notes about it so I don't forget. Probably better anyway to look at my edits tomorrow with fresh eyes, to see if I missed anything.... *Sigh*