User talk:Brimwanthony

Brimwanthony, you are invited to the Teahouse!

Hi Brimwanthony! Thanks for contributing to Wikipedia. Come join experienced editors at the Teahouse! The Teahouse is a space where new editors can get help from experienced editors. These editors have been around for a long time and have extensive knowledge about how Wikipedia works. Come share your experiences, ask questions, and get advice from experts. I hope to see you there! TheOriginalSoni (I'm a Teahouse host) Visit the Teahouse This message was delivered automatically by your robot friend, HostBot (talk) 16:20, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Response

Hi Brim, it's nice to meet you. Welcome to Wikipedia! I certainly understand that your edits were well-intentioned and I have no issues with your goal of adding high-quality information to articles about osteopathic medicine. However, the additions and removals you made to the pages osteopathy and osteopathic manipulative medicine had some issues with them that called for undoing them. I don't particularly like doing that, but when choosing sources for any claims about something related to medicine, it's best to use WP:MEDRS and WP:RS guidelines. They really do help a lot. As for using osteopathic sources, they can be helpful for verifying some claims, but usually it's best to use non-primary sources (e.g., the American Osteopathic Association is a primary source for claims about osteopathic medicine as it is very close to the subject and its neutrality on the topic might be considered questionable by some). I find that peer-reviewed secondary sources (e.g., review articles from (preferably) high impact journals) are usually the best way to go. If you have any questions, definitely feel free to contact me on my page or here anytime. I'm available for questions, comments, discussion, etc. I hope this helps to clarify the reasons behind my actions. I want to assure you that my reversions were not in any way personal and I think your edits would be greatly enhanced by using the guidelines I mentioned above. The articles you mentioned certainly have room for improvement. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 01:01, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Also, I just saw there was a bit of a struggle going on at the OMM page earlier today. It's typically best not to undo edits back and forth like that because regardless of which person is correct (if either is correct), it is considered edit warring and actions like that can end up getting you blocked from editing Wikipedia (a most unfortunate result). So, it's best to avoid that. Typically, the guidelines used are WP:BRD, which means bold edit, revert, discussion cycle meaning if you make a bold edit and an editor undoes your edit, it's better to start a discussion on the talk page to seek clarification about the reason for the revert rather than go back and forth. I hope that made sense. As for the NEJM review, on the one hand I agree that it's an old resource, but NEJM is considered a very high-quality source in general so it's difficult to justify removing it without using an equally authoritative journal source that is newer. The 1997 source you mentioned is also old and that's definitely not ideal, but your arguments are usually more compelling when you present better/newer/more authoritative sources and propose using those instead of speaking generally and saying there are better sources out there (this usually prompts the question-which sources?). The AOA won't be considered a superior source to NEJM or similar journals on this topic due to its close connection with the practice (in short, it's basically considered a primary source for this topic). As far as I know, you're relatively new to Wikipedia, so let's consider this the brief information session on avoiding edit warring. Remember, whether you're right or wrong, it's best to take it to the article's talk page when you've been reverted. If discussion is not productive, then you can seek additional editors for mediation, outside help, etc. to reach a solution. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 01:08, 19 December 2014 (UTC)