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Hi - I wanted to reach out quickly about your recent report of Are.u.sure at AIV. I'm not trying to give you a hard time - I hope you know that I hold you in exceedingly high regard for your prolific counter-vandalism work - but when investigated the edits, it wasn't obvious to me how you arrived at the conclusion of vandalism. This seems, from looking at the source, to be an improvement - I haven't gone back through the history, but I wonder if it's a revert of old vandalism, since the source seems to support the number that they changed to. This and this I'm not sure about - the assertions aren't sourced so clearly, and the paywalls make it difficult to check. I can't say for sure that it's not vandalism, but I can't clearly see that it is, so I wanted to get your take on why you think it is. I do think there are some red flags - the account hasn't edited for years, and the username is a bit dubious - but without proper access to the sources, and the time to read through them, I'm struggling to arrive at a clear-cut vandalism diagnosis. I'm eager to hear your thoughts on it. Thanks again for your enormous efforts to keep our articles free of vandalism. GirthSummit (blether) 19:58, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
That one might have been a mistake. CLCStudent (talk) 12:53, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Girth Summit, out of curiosity I'm looking at that 300,000 number: the change was probably well-intended, but the text was already completely incorrect. I know, not related, but kind of sad. Drmies (talk) 12:56, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Drmies, mmm - good point. I confess that I didn't read the whole article - I just looked at the numbers, and saw that the source mentioned 300,000 people having it, and didn't mention 30,000 anywhere. Seems like 300,000 was a pre-1998 estimate, and that it's now less than 1,000 cases per year in Africa - good news! Are you planning to update the article? GirthSummit (blether) 13:03, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Done. I haven't had coffee yet or I'd do a bit more with the article: there are opportunities. Yes, less than 1,000 cases is good news. Imagine a 20-year epidemic, and you still have to go out and grow food: no Instacart, no Amazon, no government to support you. These people in Sub-Saharan Africa are tough. Drmies (talk) 13:06, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Drmies, in the early 2000s, I did a lot of survey work in Nigeria, Cameroon and Cote d'Ivoir - tough, resourceful, and very welcoming for the most part was my experience. GirthSummit (blether) 13:43, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
